So Thursday night Dad came down after dropping Mom at Aunt Elaine's*. His computer exploded, and we needed to rebuild it. The last time we'd done it was at least 4 years ago, if not more, so he was due for a replacement seeing as he does SO much freakin CAD work with it. So I ordered him a new motherboard, quad-core CPU, ginormous video card, memory and two 750 Gig SATA drives to set up in a RAID1 array for all his data.

I was hoping to be able to pull all his settings and such off of his old system drive, because it seemed that all the problems were actually with the motherboard, not the system, but alas, his system drive was pretty much DOA. Or mostly dead, at least. But there's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do. Go through his clothes and look for loose change. But this was mostly dead, so I filled its lungs using a bellows and asked it what it had to live for, and it answered "To Blathe" which everyone knows means "To bluff."

I chocolate coated a miracle pill, but alas, all my cajoling wouldn't get any of the settings information off the drive. The Applications Data directory had given up the ghost.

It was a this point that my dad reminded me about Carbonite. Now, he's amazing at finding little programs on the internet, paying for them, and then asking me how they work when I've never seen them before. So at first, I assumed it was one of those. But as we discussed it, he convinced me that this was something legit. So we logged into his account on their web page. Reinstalled the software on the new machine, and lo-and-behold... there was a freakin on-line backup of all his data, AND all his computer settings... the whole Applications Data director, including his desktop items, cookies, favorites and such... all there for the downloading.

Ho. Ly. Crap.

It was a miracle.

The service is $50 per year, and the way it saved our asses, it's WELL worth it. It runs in the background and does incremental backups of files whenever they change, so the most recent version is always there, and apparently the previous version is kept for 30 days as well. How awesome is that?

So if this is something you're interested in, let me know, and I'll get you an invite code. You get a month free service for each person you refer. :)

me
Fixer of things

* This is a story for another time. That time will likely be later this week.

Behind this cut, the new Trek cast, sans Spock.

I have to say, I'm not unhappy.

( Uhura is HOT )

First, I made the daring attempt to manually edit sector zero on a drive that was unreadable... and amazingly, I fixed it. The data is now copying to a drive that I know works well.

Second, I managed to set up Touchpad on my iPhone, and now I can successfully connect to both my Mac Laptop and my XP Desktop computers and remote control them from iZora. This totally boggles my mind. I can see my computer screen on my phone.

Today, I am a nerd.

me
Lambda Lambda Lambda and... Omega Mu.

This... just... speaksof... the... truebrillianceof... people. Withtoomuchtime.

( Video cut )

Remember, autographed hardcover of Happiest Days of our Lives is on sale now.

me
Got mine!

So I've had a Twitter account since, like... March?  But I'd never really used it.  However, with all the fun stuff I do, I figured it might be cool to be able to do the occasional 1 sentence shout out, especially when something cool happens.

Besides, Warren Ellis and Wil Wheaton use it, why shouldn't I?

ANYWAY, I'm not going to spam the LJ with the Twitterpations, but there is a badge in my sidebar that will list the most recent Twerps on my LJ page.

So, if you, too are a Twitterer, look me up.

me
TAWT... errr.. um...

The kid who plays Sylar on Heroes will be playing the young Spock in the new Star Trek Movie.

me
Headache!

So I'd been serving as the Restaurant defacto IT guy for a while. I set up the new computers in exchange for a birthday dinner, which was cool.  But since then, I'd been working on a "retainer" of 1 bottle of awesome wine every month in exchange for simple services.

Well, last week, M the Manager put up a note saying he was looking for someone to help him with wine inventory and such.  I told him that if no one else wanted to do it, I'd be happy to, but I didn't want to take the job away from someone else.  It was 3 hours a week at $10/hour, plus a monthly inventory. Not alot, but some extra pocket money, PLUS I get to learn more about the wines, and get to know the vendors better and such.  Turns out no one else wanted the job, and M was happy to have me do it, since I'd already built him a database for all the wines.

So yesterday I sit down with M to discuss the specifics, and he tells me that since I'm already an Assistant Manager, and am doing the IT stuff, the owners don't want to pay me $10/hr to do the job.  Instead, they want to take away my wine "retainer" and I get health benefits.

SCORE!

Also, I'm capturing a vinyl copy of The Beatles album, Hey Jude, to my laptop with my USB Turntable.  SO awesome.  I am totally a geek.

me
BRING ME MORE AWESOME! I COMMAND IT!

Yeah, I'm a geek.

Reorganizing files and where backups of different things stay.  (OS Settings back up to small drive, Data backups to OS Drive, etc...)

Do I really *NEED* this much space?  Well, the more editing work I do with the Moron Life, yeah... granted after a bit the larger video files (> 1 gig) get burned to double layer DVDs for storage, but I need them live for a while, so...

For the record, they're all internal drives, plus 2 DVD burners.  2 Local IDE, 4 on a secondary IDE card, one SATA.  Guess I really DID need that full tower case that I bought 5 freakin years ago... finally.  I still have a 10 gig SCSI drive if I can find space for it... ;)

me
GEEK!

Just a reminder that tomorrow (Friday) Stargate, Stargate and Battlestar Galactica premier on SciFi. Next Friday they start airing Firefly.

me
Public Service Announcement King

So apparently there's now an Open Source alternative to Skype, called Gizmo (for lack of a better name, it seems).

"At a recent conference, a Skype founder suggested "regulating the incumbents" to force others to carry Skype calls. Skype calls go over the public Internet, but are often carried on telephone company wiring (DSL) which Skype is worried could be configured to block their calls. They are proposing that the government should step in and demand that those telephone company networks carry Skype calls.

Meanwhile, Skype is refusing to carry anyone else's calls on their own phone system. They are engaging in exact behavior - they are worried about others trying. Skype can't have it both ways. If Skype wants to lock others out of their system, shouldn't the telephone companies have the same right also?"

Anyway, regardless of whether or not Skype is hypocritical, I'm all about Open Source.

So if you install Gizmo and want to chat, my username is Clay27344733 :)

me
Today's Geek Moment^(tm) is brought to you by the Letter @.

Edit: Oh, duh... http://www.gizmoproject.com/

5 reasons why you are a geek. And make them good reasons. Justify them. Explain them. Be loud and proud about how big of a geek you are!

1) I get more excited about going to the Science Museum than the Museum of Fine arts.

2) I built both my computers from spare parts.

3) I can control my TiVo from my cellphone.

4) I've made a guest appearance on Sluggy.com.

5) Everyone I know in San Jose I met because of SOME connection to the Internet.

And now, for the things I would tell my 16 year old self if I could....

Nothing. Not a damn thing.

I wracked my brain over this for a long time, bouncing around things like "Kiss her, dipshit" and such, but in the end, every single thing that I hit on to "fix" would have completely changed who I am right now. And I'm pretty damn happy with who I am right now. If I was forced to say SOMETHING to my 16 year old self, it would be "Don't worry." Oh, and "No, you won't go blind."


me
Sixteen!

Once again, I find myself in the position of needing to apologize for the lack of substance in El Blogo (El Bloga?) recently. I'm still playing catchup with everything that I didn't do while I was away on vacation, but never fear, there is more fun on the way.

Have a great Friday everyone.

me
A Man of Substance

Anyone know of any good on-line references for working with mySQL using the command line interface? I've never done the whole "shell" access thing before, and it's sort of intimidating.

me
Not as geeky as some would believe

Okay, time to be scared. Testing WinXP on my computer at home. So far soo good... I'm posting at least.

Show tonight in Newport was REALLY good. Alot of letting go and just running with it, which is what it's all about.

Must go to bed now, though...

me
Windows XP is now shutting down...