My normal desktop (of over 3 years) crashed a couple of weeks ago. Now, I’m no newbie, I can fix just about anything (or waste a lot of time trying) – but I decided that this time I’d just buy a new computer.

The faulty component was the motherboard – the capacitors were going bad and something had caused the power connector to burn at the connection point on the MB. The CPU works fine, as well as everything else; but I decided that I can buy myself a new PC since I spend so much time using the thing.

So, the new specs are now going to be :

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (a dual-core CPU, each with 1MB cache for a total of 2MB cache on-die)
ASUS A8N32-SLI Motherboard (with onboard everything except graphics, a heatpipe for cooling, 2 16x PCI express slots with separate data channels)
2.5GB PC3200 RAM
NVidia 7800 GT Graphics card (with SLI)
2x Western Digital SATA-300 250GB drives in RAID mode (for one fast 500GB drive), plus a pair of normal IDE drives for data storage (~800GB total)

… and the rest of the hardware stuff is not so important. I’ll be installing Gentoo Linux as my base OS (64-bit goodness, of course), with a real install of WinXP 64 Bit Edition for gaming (I dont know if it is actually better to use the 64-bit version versus the 32-bit one as far as games go), followed by two virtual machines : one with Mandrake Linux (to stay compatible with some of the software I am developing), and one with Windows XP (also for development). In a year or two when the cost of the graphics cards go down, I’ll get a second one to run them both in SLI mode (where they both share the processing).

Geeky.

I’ve been doing some work on the side for EADS, the place where I did my Masters Thesis. It’s not that I really want to, or that I need the money (it’s not very good; in fact, I haven’t work for such little money since I was probably 19 or so). I think its because I feel wasn’t really happy with the way I left the simulator project that I had programmed; I felt like it was unfinished and I don’t like to leave “loose ends” like that if I can help it.

So, I agreed at the end of my thesis term to help out one of my colleagues there, since he was due to pick up where I left off. And I know that NOBODY likes to pick up where someone else left off when it comes to coding.

Now here I am, going back to a place that I didn’t like in the first place, doing something I didn’t particularly care for (but was interested enough in it to do my thesis on it), and for really bad pay. Why?

I guess it’s for three reasons: I don’t like leaving things “undone”, since it reflects badly on me. Secondly, I wanted to help out my colleague. And third (and least important) is so that in the future, I can use this as a reference; therefore, I want it to be a good one.

But what makes it even worse is when I get the feeling that THEY think they’re doing me a favor by having me there. That’s the part that irks me. I would personally not care to go there again; getting the attitude that I’m being done a favor is… well… annoying. So, instead of spending the next several weeks (until the end of February) there as a part time employee, I’m going to finish this thing as soon as possible (maybe next month sometime) so that I don’t need to go back.

Interesting note: Germans, for the most part, are real big on following (and not questioning) the “rules”. As a chronic rule-breaker (my first instinct, however unhealthy, is to circumvent the rules) it is sometimes good for me; but more often than not, it reveals a trait that I think is a little rediculous. Just because rules are made doesn’t mean that they are good, or even beneficial; I leave it up to my own judgement to decide if I want to follow what any particular “rules” dictate. Most of the time it’s a good idea, but not always. Blind following of the rules keeps the sheep safe – but a corrupt guide can easily lead them off the edge of a cliff if it’s convenient for him.

I’ve just changed to a decent hosting service. Finally, my site might actually work when I want it to!

I’ll be trying to import all of the old stuff (and the layout will change) over the next several days. If you are actually looking for something, sorry – there won’t be anything available here for a few days. It looks like it will be a big deal to import all of the stuff from the old software I was using.

I’m hoping that using a new kind of web software (WordPress) will be a little bit nicer and somewhat easier to manage. Stay tuned..