February 2008 Archives

Yesterday morning at 6:45am, my Windows machine was powered down and finally retired to the back of my closet. It was a momentous occasion for sure, though there were no doves released at the end. Last night after work, I sat down to clean up the desk area and finish putting the computer in its resting place. Personally, I cannot believe how much space I have under my desk now.

Then it came time to attempt to install my printer on my iMac. One small problem which I had not realized. My printer the HP Deskjet 952C (which save for some mysterious grinding noises last year has been pretty reliable) has only a 24Pin serial connector. Oops. Not exactly compatible with modern computers!

So now I have to go out and get a new printer. Paul has suggested the wireless HP printer and I am thinking of that or the multifunction wireless printer that includes fax capability. I can always get a wired network printer and use the cable that my old Windows machine used.

To Be Continued!

I have finally connected my iMac to my Windows PC via Firewire Cable. It blazes along at 600+ KB/s but still takes 3 hours to transfer 11GB of data. It is about half the time that it took over my wireless internet. I started to doubt whether I actually needed the files off the old computer, but I decided to put the raw AVI files from one of my home movies on the Mac (to edit with my new copy of Final Cut Pro). I decided to leave the master DVD Rendering files on the hard drive on the windows machine since if I am going to master a new DVD, I probably will re-do the menus as well. Just in case, I will make sure I keep that drive and the external enclosure I bought for it when it served as extra storage for my first laptop all those years ago.

As I have been telling just about everyone, I really, REALLY love my new machine. I know there are rumblings about a new iMac processor being released soon, but I don't care. This machine is so far ahead of what I was using before and so much easier to boot. I am sort of impatient with the backing up of the old machine. I want it done so I can get it out of the way and get to working on some web sites!

Speaking of which, it took me forever to get my file transfer protocol running since I inadvertently locked myself out of my account trying to connect with the wrong user name. I downloaded BBEdit to use as my text editor and I am still waiting for my copy of Dreamweaver and Photoshop to arrive. Looks like I will have to use my laptop to get started on some graphics works until it arrives.

But all in all I am happy.

One more note - kudos to Mark and Jen! Jen just gave birth to their firstborn. I think that leave me and Susie as the only ones left sans offspring.

Day 2 of having the 24" iMac in the house has been going well. I can not believe how easy they have made setting everything up. So far there have been a few learning curves here and there. For example - the Mighty Mouse does not do the right-mouse thingy that I have grown attached to over the years. I have an extra Intellimouse lying around that I was going to use for my laptop, but I might press it into service here. I have also had a few issues trying to locate some setting items in various places, but overall, I think Leopard is written in a way that makes it easier for us Windows users to get acclimated. Case in point, I felt that Tiger (on Daniel's Mac Mini) was very counter intuitive. I don't know if that was really the case, but it certainly felt that way when I tried to make my slide show back in June.

The only other issue I am having is getting the files from my Windows machine to the Mac. Thank god for Mac Help, because even though it can be condescending towards the Windows machines at times (you have to enable a "less secure" form of encryption to get the machines to talk to each other) it still has been a great help. It seems transferring via wireless takes forever, so over the weekend I am going to try and boot the Mac up as a firewire drive to see if I can just copy the files that way. I finished all of my MP3s, but I still have tons of photos and DVD files that I might need to just burn images of and then copy onto my Mac as needed.

Hopefully, I can get my old desktop into the back of the closet by next week. I want to keep it around a bit longer before I recycle it just in case I forget something. I'd like to think that I would be becoming Windows-free, but I still have my trusty Dell laptop which I will keep for sometime.

I kept heading out to the parking lot of my complex tonight hoping to see the last total lunar eclipse until 2010. Sadly, mother nature had other ideas and the sky was mostly cloudy. I did get a brief glimpse of the moon just before it went total, but then I started to get cold and went inside. Oh well. Some random neighbor of mine asked me if I was looking for the eclipse, to which I replied, "Yeah, but the clouds are not cooperating". What I really wanted to say was, "No, I am trying to see if I can see bits of expensive military satellite are about to collide with our complex", but alas I felt like a big enough dork as it was.

Tomorrow FedEx is delivering my first new computer in over seven years. Woo Hoo! I have begun backing up my files onto DVDs. I still don't know how I am going to handle all the mp3s and DVD video files I have stored on the second drive in my machine. I was toying of the idea of putting it back into the external enclosure I bought for it back in 2004 (for the old laptop), but I will probably just try and transfer it over the network.

It is not like I can just abandon my PC just yet. Until I get a copy of Adobe CS so I can use Photoshop and Dreamweaver, I will be limited on the web design work I can do. I will stick to the laptop for the time being to help with the little things I need to get done. I am excited about trying to rip some of the Charo archive footage I have on DVDs from David. Also, I can get Roxio Toast so I can convert some of the old TiVo recordings I have to DVDs as well.

What did I get? Just this little jewel:

Not much going on in the world of Club Josh these days. I have been busy with work. The biggest thing I have been agonizing over is the purchase of a new computer. I pretty much have settled on a new iMac, its just a matter of getting up the nerve to actually press the buy now button on the Apple web site. I wish I could just go into an Apple store, but if I purchase it online, I get a discount through work.

Today I decided to wipe the old computer my Dad gave to me and install a fresh copy of XP. It is still a faster computer than the one I currently use as my desktop, and I will be able to use it as a media server once I get all of the drivers and such installed on it. I also might just give it back to my Dad when I get the new iMac. One thing I will try to do first on the other Dell machine is see if I can quickly rip video material for the Charo site. That way I can get started on my new design for the site. One thing that is cool is that my original machine can be donated to Goodwill (sans hard drives of course) and I will be able to get a tax deduction. I can also have Dell Recycle my machine for free as well. No longer will I have old computers hanging around in my house.

So once I get everything all squared away I will be much more productive!

While I was working on the computer, it had to install 90 updates to Windows XP - holy crap!

There is a good chance that in the next few weeks I will take the plunge and get a new computer. I am still undecided as to what I will actually get, but I am heavily leaning iMac. I know, I have had a Windows PC since 1989, but I have had way to many issues with hijacked computers and pop ups. Let alone the whole Vista debacle.

My issues with converting are this:
1) Software - I will need to spend some cash getting Office, Photoshop, a good HTML editor, a DVD Ripper and DVD Authoring program.
2) MP3s - I will need to reformat my iPod and move them somewhere. I am tempted to turn my PC into a MP3 jukebox that will sit somewhere on all the time and allow me to stream my music from both computers

Plusses include:
1) New Faster computer
2) Ability to do more multimedia work for my new websites
3) Cost - If I get a windows system, I can get a whole lot more for the same price

The decision will come if I can get this contract I am working on hammered out in the few days. I missed a call from my client and I will touch bases with them tomorrow to try and resolve everything. Once it is all resolved, I will be able to spill the beans on what will happen.

I finally caught this movie from Netflix and I have to say that while enjoyable, this seemed to be a "lite" feature. There was not much really going on other than Harry brooding around the place and other than Neville, the rest of the characters experienced zero development (Ok, Harry did get a first kiss, but that is about it).

Having not read the book, I can only imagine what was left out considering its size. At any rate I certainly enjoyed Goblet of Fire more.

Bonus note: The Richard Donner cut of Superman II was pretty good. I missed the Eiffel Tower, and it was pretty obvious when they used a screen test instead of actual footage, but they did a great job making it all work. I don't know if any one else noticed, but Richard Donner seems like he is still pissed about what Richard Lester did to his movie. Oh, and aparently his is a big anti-fur activist (if you have any doubts watch the bonus features - nice Anti fur button on his shirt, and the end credits - large font fur disclaimer). If you have not seen it I recommend checking it out.