To borrow a phrase from an old Elvis song
I'm All Shook Up yesterday evening I was when I was attacked by a very large spider. I'd taken the hose from the water tank so I could fill up a water jug when the spider rushed out the end of the hose and wound up on my thumb. Fortunately I acted in a flash and flung it off of my hand. Needless to say I didn't have time to think about fetching the camera to take a picture of it I just stomped it instead. By doing that I couldn't search online to find out what type spider it was. :( Anyway it didn't have time to bite me, but I just went out trying to find the remains and they were gone. I guess the ants or something else had already carted off the remains .
Been running in to more computer problems. :( Yesterday I went to the storage building to search for the Windows XP install disk (which I succeeded in finding) Also brought one of my other computers over here and took the hard drive out of it so I could put it in the external drive case and try to setup a dual boot system with the windows and Linux. (A test run)
I got the drive changed out in the external case, fired up the laptop and proceeded to install XP on that hard drive. The install went well through the whole process of nuking the partitions on the drive, reformatting the drive (About an hour's wasted time) and going all the way through the install, but then reporting that there had been a problem with the install and said it couldn't be used. ARG!!! I says to myself "Self, just put the drive with Linux already installed back in the hard drive case and start using that again." Which I did. Everything worked fine, BUT for some reason my external USB DVD player wouldn't play movies anymore. Major BUMMER because I like to watch movies since there isn't much else to do here at night besides listen to the Zune.
Now I guess I'll wait until the hard drive my nephew is sending me gets here, install it in the laptop and see how the windows install goes on it so I can go ahead and add Linux along with it for the dual boot. Now I remember why I quit building and repairing computers!
Dunno which bothers me more, spiders or snakes. Glad you weren't bit.
ReplyDeleteThe ant's are impressive. They striped all the blooms off of the purple sage in about 3 days! An aggressive spider can not be a good thing..glad it got stomped!
ReplyDeleteI'll have to agree on stomping the spider, I don't care for those critters at all! Yes, I have to agree with the not building computers as well either. They tend to very quickly turn into major PITA's.
ReplyDeleteThings are progressing very slowly on the Dr. front, I received a call this morning from my oncology nurse saying the new Dr. finally has all of my records and I should hear from them soon. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, as that's all I can control. I'll surely let yall know what and when I know anything else. Hope your computer starts behaving, I guess someone figured with Pepper leaving you needed something else to keep you occupied. lol
Hey David, it looks like your bad luck rubbed off on Frann.
ReplyDeleteDang computers ;) Can you watch movies on Hulu? http://www.hulu.com/popular/feature_films?timeframe=today
ReplyDeletedesert rose, I don't care for either either;) Some I'll tollerate of both though. (If they aren't a threat)
ReplyDeleteFrann, I've seen the ants devour lizards, other bugs and no telling what else they will go after. The ones here seem to be near impossible to kill on top of that!
Dale, I bet when I showed you how to build and work on computers I was doing you a favor didn't you? ;) Little did you know. Still thinking those Happy Thoughts!
DD, evidently so. :( Oh well at least I have company.
Abby, I took your advice and downloaded the package you suggested and it works great. Sort of light, but heck it more or less turns a USB key in to your own private computer IF you can use someone else's. I need to get the thunderbird on it setup so I can get my mail where ever I happen to be using it.
There isn't enough bandwidth down here to watch movies. (Unfortunately)
Dave,
ReplyDeleteBy default, most Linux distributions do not include a DVD decoder, because they require a paid license. There are free decoders out there, but the legality is questionable, so many distributions prefer not to do battle with the DVD consortium, and keep the decoder out.
However, there is a free little program called Video Lan, or VLC media player, that provides a DVD codec, as well as many other codecs within the program itself.
In Mandriva, you can go to Configure my computer, add software, then do a search in the search bar for VLC. (or if all else fails, google VLC and download the version appropriate for your release of Mandriva)
Then, when you want to watch a DVD, put it in the drive, and start VLC to watch it.
Dave, the laptop nor the desktop have DVD players in them so I bought an external USB DVD player shortly before I came down here so I could switch it between them. That appears to be the problem. The USB (Sony no doubt) drive has taken a dump because neither of the computers will play it now. Both were before... Oh well it looks like I'll be putting the drive back in the tower (Which does have a DVD player in it) and I can use that during the day time to watch movies off of or at night when its windy like it is now.
ReplyDeleteyer talkin chiiiiineeze to me if yer talkin computers. I know how to turn mine on and barely blog and stuff. Good luck and I hope you get it resolved.
ReplyDeleteAs for the spider I know what you mean about wanting to know what kind it was. sounded aggresive , maybe a recluse?
Nope Nick, way too big for one of those.
ReplyDelete