In and Installed

I'm going to put this in big bold letters so you remember - and more importantly, so that I remember it.
OEM Hardware Does Not Come with ANYTHING!!!
We will call that Rule #1 of Building a Computer. So DJay (that is, me), remember the next time you buy anything that is appended with letters standing for Original Equipment Manufacturer that it is up to you (meaning me) to find the cables, the mounting screws, the software and the drivers to make it run. Which is what ultimately decided that my new DVD burner was going to be a swap job instead of an add-on.
The actual physical installation was a snap. I was half-afraid I would have to go in and remove the power supply in order to get the thing in. I was saved from that hassle by popping off the case's plastic front cover and sliding it out the front. I have very little good to say about Compaq (though I'm a bit kinder to them since they were bought by HP), but their cases were well-made.
So out goes the old, semi-functioning CD-RW drive and in pops the DVD burner. I fire up the Windows side, pop in a DVD (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, if you were wondering) and am promptly reminded of Rule #1. And it's corollory: if it's an upgrade, the software to use it won't be on the system restore disc.
To quote from the Windows Media Player website[1]: By default, Windows does not include a DVD decoder. "Not a big deal," I think as I follow the provided link; "I'll just download the decoder and call it good." MS offered three links for DVD playback on their WMP site: Roxio, CyberLink, and InterVideo. Get DVD playback capabilites added for $15.00.
And I thought for a second, and I decided I'd go with VLC. This free (as in Libre) video player can handle DVD natively. It can also handle pulling the video from the DVD but that's a whole other story. Only one problem, the VLC isn't a plugin, and so I have to run VLC instead of WMP, but that's not a big deal. A quick change to the context menu (changing the default action for DVDs to Open with VLC) and we're good to go. A quick press of the play button and I'm hearing the strains of So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish. Grab the universal drivers for the Lightscribe system (which uses the DVD burner's laser to engrave a label on the top of the disc) and I'm done on that side.
Now, over to the Linux side. Again, less trouble than I was expecting. Ubuntu recognized the drive as a burner, and recognized the DVD that was in it.[2] Again, I run into the same problems as on the Windows side; neither Kaffeine nor Totem could read the disc, complaining it was encrypted and that I lacked the necessary library. Totem went ahead and told me which one I needed, but couldn't tell me where to find it. By that time, it was time for me to go to work, so I've done some research. I found the driver necessary, and have installed it (I love being able to use SSH to log in at home). Now, just to be on the safe side, I haven't played it, and won't until I get home. Chel may not appreciate a DVD going off behind her back for no apparent reason (I still haven't figured out how to route the sound through the remote computer's speakers. Oh well.). We'll see if it worked first thing in the morning.


[1] MS Play CD or DVD FAQ
[2] Or, at least, the fact it was a DVD, and the volume label.

NCAA Tourney Day 1

This is one time of year I actually do enjoy watching basketball; and after one day in the NCAA Division I Championship tournament (March Madness), I am fairly impressed, and feel good that the teams I were really wanting/expecting to win did. I'm not in any pools this year; I don't have a "Bracket of Integrity", I just watch the games, and pick a team as I go.

So, a look at the headlines...
Blue Devils need last second magic to beat Belmont
It took the Dukeys the entire game to beat the 15-seeded Bruin. Down 71-70 with 4 seconds left, Belmont had the ball out of bounds under their own basket and mishandled the inbounds pass. Duke will face West Virginia (def. Arizona 75-65) early Saturday afternoon (2 pm Eastern)
No rain delay for Bulldogs, Musketeers advance
One of the best stories this year, the #14 Georgia Bulldogs had to win two games in one day in the SEC tournament to even qualify for the big dance. (The severe weather in Atlanta - don't know if they ever confirmed as a tornado - damaged the arena and forced the schedule back a day.) But the Dawgs ran out of steam against #3 Xavier, losing 73-61.
Bears Boiled
I was kinda hoping for an upset here, but 6-ranked Purdue was 11 points better than #11 Baylor. Was hoping to see a Big XII team advance here, but oh well. Purdue and Xavier are on tap for the later Saturday afternoon game.
Aggies hold off BYU
I did get my wish of a Big XII team advancing in the west regionals, but what a reward huh? As a prize for knocking off the #8 Cougars, #9 Texas A&M will face off against #1 UCLA (def. Mississippi Valley State 70-29).
Wildcats slip past Trojans
Yes, I know it was a 13-point win; but anytime #6 USC plays, the headline has to include some sort of condom reference. Except for a strech midway through the second half, #11 K-State looked really good in the upset. Beasley will play (at least) one more game for the Royal Purple, and it will be against the #3 Badgers of Wisconson.

Kansas beating Portland State doesn't even deserve a headline, though it was closer than I would have liked... they may have a hard time in Saturday's noon game against UNLV.

Games I'm keeping an eye out for today, ...
Assuming of course, that I'm 1) up and 2) in control of the remote. Both of these are fairly doubtful.
7 Gonzaga - 10 Davidson Raleigh, NC; 12:55 pm ET. Intriguing little matchup here, and another good spot for an upset. Davidson is riding a 22-game winning streak, has a better record, averages more points, and allows fewer points than the Bulldogs. Their losses? North Carolina, Duke, at UCLA, at Charlotte, at Western Michigan, and at NC State.
2 Texas - 15 Austin Peay Little Rock, AR; 3:00 pm ET. Austin Peay hasn't won a tourney game in 21 years, and I don't think that streak is going to end this year. Texas will not want to be the first #2 seed knocked off in the first round since '01; and after Duke's scare yesterday, you can bet that Texas coach Rick Barnes is gonna have his guys ready to play.
6 OU - 11 St Josephs Birmingham, AL; 7:10 pm ET. Another homer game for me. I want to see all the Big XII teams do well (because if they do well, then KU/K-State look better by comparison).
8 Indiana - 9 Arkansas Raleigh, NC; 9:40 pm ET. The late game I'm keeping an eye on because of the story surrounding it. If you didn't know, Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson resigned quite suddenly amidst allegations of recruiting violations. Pretty much the same thing he was caught doing at Oklahoma - making calls to recruits in ways that were against NCAA rules. Indiana basketball really hasn't been the same since they parted ways with Bob Knight. One thing I will say about coach Knight. You may not like him, you may not like his coaching style or interview style or on-court persona. But he did his job well, and he did it without the barest whiff of impropriety. So I take a goodly amount of Schadenfreude in IU's recent troubles. But with the resignation of Sampson, I'd like to see them do well.

A long and boring night.

Normally, having a slow night doesn't bother me much. I mean, I can usually find things to do... but in Kinsley a slow night is a slow night.
On a normal night, dispatch usually handles two officers - one PD (city) and one SO (county).[1] Sometimes on weekends, the PD sends out two, but usually it's just me, the radio, and two guys on the other end.
Tonight was a little different. Everybody (but me) went home by midnight. That's means 7 hours where it's me, the computer, and the slight chance the phone might ring. It's been a long shift.



[1] Day shift is a little busier, 1 PD and 2 SO.

DVD update

So, with permission from my lovely wife, I went ahead and bought that DVD burner from Newegg. If my date-crunching abilities are on, it should be here on Monday. Total spent: $65. That includes S&H, three GB (3x1GB) memory cards for the little one's media player, and a stack of DVDs. Now the only thing I'm concerned about is whether to just add the DVD drive or replace the existing CD-RW.

Simply adding the drive has a certain desirous quality to it. I have a free 5 1/4" outward-facing bay open, and the power supply is more than capable of handling a second optical drive. Bsides, since this is technically a "combo" drive[1], it would make certain procedures much less painful and disc swapping a more palatable alternative.
But to do that, I'm gonna need to grab a new IDE cable, right now I have a Single and a Double, and I'd need two doubles (I remembered this only after I put in the order; thankfully, dad has a room full of such cables, I bet that I can swipe one). [2] Hopefully, this won't mess with my setup too much... I have things working pretty much how I want them, and this may mean a half hour or so of changing symbolic links. That is one thing that I will give Windows; the relative ease of adding new hardware[3]. We'll see what I can figure out between now and when it comes in.

[1] It can write to a number of different media types, notably here (multiple formats of) DVD and CD.
[2] There's probably a specific name for them, but I don't know it. The one's I call "single" have two connectors - one on each end - and let you attach a single drive; the "doubles" have three connectors, to attach two drives to the motherboard.
[3] I like Linux, and I prefer to use Linux. But I'm not a zealot; I can and will admit when something else does something better. And assigning locations to devices by UUID (and having the OS recognize them) is something that I have more experience on Windows than on Linux systems [A]

[A] Gods do I have experience with it. A tip for all of you setting up Windows networks; Assign network drive letters closer to Z than to E. Hotpluggable devices - digital cameras, flash drives, basically anything that Windows treats as a hard drive - starts assigning drive letters with D. And manually assigned network drives are dealt with second, but take operating precedence. In other words, say you've got a hard drive (C:) and a CD drive (D:). Then you mount a network share (Map Network Drive) as E:\.
Now, plug in your digital camera. You'll get the found new hardware, and it'll attempt to autoinstall. And it will automatically mount the camera as the next drive. The mounting routing, however, doesn't check for mounted network shares; so the memory card in your camera becomes E:\. But, since the network drive assignment takes precedence, the drive designation (E:\) is taken back by the network share. And you can't find or eject your camera. Great jorb.{i}

{i} The way to fix that is by right clicking My Computer, Manage...; and then going and reassigning the device to a new letter.

$25 DVD burner

For every new computer tech, there comes a point where I say one of three things:

1. Forget it, there's no way I'm dropping $X on that.
2. Ooh, ooh, ooh; gotta have it, gotta have it now; or
   
3. Well,I guess this is the new standard. Time to invest in it.

Actually, that's usually my thought process on anything, not just computer tech. But Newegg sent out their Deals of the Day feed, and it hit me. While I wasn't looking, DVD went from #3 to its swan song.
Now, outside of a few things here and there (Nintendo DS being the prime example), there's never been any confusion between me and a hardware early adopter. I don't have HDTV, hell, I don't even have a DVR. But perhaps its time I got a DVD burner for my computer.
Hell, right now, I could pick up an internal DVD burner for my computer for slightly more than a special edition DVD [1].
Probably the biggest reason I never bothered with a recordable DVD was all the different choices of format, and the limitations of actual readers in using them. DVD-R, DVD+R, +RW, -RW, -RAM, +R DL; and it's a crap shoot whether your living room player would even be able to read it.
For the 30 bucks, I really thought about getting one. But then I did what I always seem to do... I said to myself, "Deege, you were wanting to build a media center PC anyway. Why not just put the money away and save up for the combo BluRay drive/DVD burner instead?"

[1] No, I'm not exaggerating, by much. LG DVD burner @ newegg.com, $24.99; "I Am Legend" 2-disc Special Edition @ walmart.com $22.87

New Game

I've been spending some time doing something that I never thought I would. I've been playing an MMORPG[1].

For years, I've avoided this type of game. Mostly because - in all honestly - I have an addictive personality. So, mindful of the horror stories of "Evercrack"[2], I dipped my toes into the world of Puzzle Pirates. Mostly because, well, it's one of the few that isn't pay-to-play.

Most MMORPGs are along the lines of Dungeons and Dragons: a magical fantasy setting, and killing monsters (or other players) makes your stronger. And this formula has worked well for everything from the old text-based MUDs to the latest upgrade to World of Warcraft. And the problem I have with them isn't that I don't like the setting or gameplay; it's that I do. And when I like something, I tend to go overboard on it.
But I decided to try my luck at Puzzle Pirates. It's less of a traditional MMORPG; it's a series of puzzle minigames connected by common theme and graphics. There are still the basic MMORPG elements to it; you can go solo or join a clan (crew) or guild (flag) to attack (pillage) roaming monsters (either actual sea monsters or Non-Player Character pirate crews) or other even other players. But what makes it interesting to me is the free (as opposed to subscription) servers economies. Goods (except for raw materials and cash) are all controlled and produced in-character. That means if you want a sword, you either have to find someone who has the sword you want and buy it from them, or go to the blacksmith and have a sword made. Want a ship? Go to the shipyard; if they have the raw materials, they'll make you the ship.
The only thing that really isn't produced in-character (or via the spawning system which controls commodities and cash) are dubloons. Dubloons are a higher-priced currency, that are created by purchasing them on-line, around 25 cents per dubloon. Dubloons are used for delivery costs on things like ships, and to unlock certain puzzles for a month or so. You can trade for them at the banks; the exchange rate is around 1000 PoE for a Dubloon, though it varies quite a bit.
As for the puzzles themselves, most of them are fairly familiar. If you've played Bejeweled, you'll be comfortable Bilging, Dr Mario fans will grep Sailing fairly quickly; Bubble Bobble masters will rock at Rumble. As for the more esoteric puzzles, there are help guides and in-game tutorials readily available.

Tell you what, click the logo to download and try it yourself. The download may take a bit, but I think it's worth it. The software is free, playing is free. If you go through this link (or the widget at the top of the page), you get 500 PoE to start your piratey lifestyle - and Gilles De Rais (my pirate on Hunter ocean) gets some cash out of the deal as well. Give a "tell" on the bottom bar if I'm online. I'll hear you anywhere on the ocean.


[1] That is, a Massively Mutliplayer Online Role Playing Game.
[2] A play on the actual name, Everquest. It was one of the first "mainstream" MMORPGs, and got a lot of publicity when some younger players would neglect friends and family in favor of the game.

290 and other updates

A Note about Notes
Following the style of two of my favorite authors (being Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett), I've decided to include asides in the form of footnotes. Mostly because they make the text itself easier to read: otherwise I'd have all sorts of appositive phrases offset with nested brackets and braces and parenthesis and dashes. You know, [something like this {or this (or even this - though this one may be a touch ridiculous-)}].

Weight Update
I've not been keeping up on writing this, and that's alright. But I hit a milestone weight this last week. I'm down to 290, which is pretty much the lightest I've been since I moved back to Kinsley. Five more pounds and I'll be as light as Chel has ever known me.
She, on the other hand, has hit a bit of a mental plateau. Not that I can blame her though; between running the Girl Scout cookie sales, troubles at her job, and me being well, me; stress has become a major part of her life. That and a major setback to her weight loss - an ongoing medical problem which is going to limit her somewhat.
All in all, I've got about 15 pounds to lose before the second weekend in April.

Computer Update
Used the cash I got from my birthday to buy an upgrade for my tinkering rig. Jumped from that 256MB module I had left (see my last post) to a full GB of RAM and plugged in a 80GB second hard drive. I installed Xubuntu [1] on the new drive, so now I'm dual booting between that and WinXP.
Also trying a neat little XP program called VirtualCD (it's not freeware, btw). It lets you emulate a DVD/CD burner. Which means I can burn to CD [ending up as the 'image' of a disk] without actually using a CD. Will be very useful for getting those nice Apple proprietary files to work on A's media player. Which was the entire reason I put WinXP on in the first place!

Vacation Updates
Spring and summer is the time for vacations. And night shifts' Vacays start the first weekend in April. Nothin' like pulling a 7 on/7 off to start a month, eh? Not that I'm complaining too much, mind you. That mid-April paycheck should have 122 paid hours on it[2]. Combined with the dispatch-wide raise we got[3] will make sure anything I put off before our first trip to KC will get paid for. The next one will have 96 paid hours - still a boost compared to my normal 88.
I get more boosted checks for June: the one coming right before BOM will be another 122, mid-June will be 128. Since I'm taking Vacay to take Aubrey to Worlds of Fun over the 4th of July weekend, I won't get holiday pay; but if I end up working like I've offered to, that's 140 paid hours to get me from the 21st into August.
Sometimes, I just love working the system.

Hobby Update
I'm of the firm opinion that every man needs a hobby[4]. You know, something that he can be passionate about[4]. An activity that he can grab onto with both hands and really get into[4]. One of my coworkers actually has two: motorcycles (which didn't surprise me) and photography (which kinda did).
Mine is computers - if you hadn't guessed. I've got my tinker rig going pretty well, and over the next year or so, I'd like to save up the money to build my own computer. You can help. Click the Donate link to the left, and help me get the money I need to build my own computer.

***
[1] That's the Xfce desktop environment on top of the Ubuntu distribution of Debian Linux. If you're willing to switch to a Linux environment, Xfce is fantastic solution for working on a computer with a slower processor or limited memory - in other words, a rig that chugs trying to actually do stuff on WinXP. I've since installed the K Desktop Environment. KDE a bit more of a memory hog (still pales in CPU usage to XP), but since I like the interface and workings of a lot of the KDE programs, I figured I'd go ahead and switch over.[a]
[2] I consider a 'paid hour' the amount of time worked to earn an hour's pay. For time and a half overtime, every 40 real minutes, you are paid as if you worked a full hour. [b]
[3] Our sheriff convinced the commissioners that it would be

1. Cheaper than training a part-time newbie
2. Cheaper than paying benefits for a new supervisor; and
3. Much cheaper than paying the Deputies time and a half to sit in dispatch

[4] Other than the obvious.[c]

****

[a] Not that you can't run K* (most KDE-based programs) under XFCE. In fact, I did for a while. But when you "apt-get install" a program (the preferred way of doing things) in a Debian distro (such as Ubuntu), all the program's dependencies - the files containing the instructions and other programs it needs to run - are installed as well. In Linux, the libraries (instruction files) are shared between programs[A]. Which meant by the time I had installed the few programs that I really like using (Kontact for email, Konversation for instant messaging, Amarok for tunes), I had pretty much installed KDE anyway. version 3.5, at least. I'm not in the mood to help beta-test 4.0.

[b] Which makes paid holidays kinda suck. The county awards holiday pay equally across the board: everyone gets 8 paid hours. Even if you work a 12-hour shift that day (like I have to when I work), you get 8 additional paid hours for the holiday; for a total of 20 paid hours [holiday pay does not count toward the 40 hrs/week OT start]. Which means that on a holiday, the exchange rate is 36 real minutes::1 paid hour.

[c] Masturbation.

***

[A] This makes patching some security issues much easier. If you fix a problem in a shared library, that fix extends to everything that uses that library. Compare that to Windows where nearly every program ships with its own sets of drivers and libraries.