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	Welcome To My Home... February 6, 2003 Virtually Helpful I reformatted my computer over the break. Of course, you already know that because my announcement informing you of the event was on the front page of my website for a good two weeks. The numbers are just now starting to come in, but it appears that the only things I lost this time were my Zork Nemesis saved games and the sounds I had used to replace those annoying ones that AIM comes with. Right now I'm using attack sounds from American McGee's Alice, but that'll soon change. The last time someone messaged me, it freaked me out. Multibooting has worked (so far) quite wonderfully for me. The biggest problem I've encountered is that I likely will never be able to watch The Lord of the Rings extended DVD on my computer in its current state. The DVD, due to reasons apparently out of the manufacturer's control, does not work on the specific model of DVD-ROM drive that happens to be installed on my computer. I'm sure it's not their fault, though. It must be a fluke that every other DVD works fine in it. The problem then becomes that the DVD-ROM firmware updater that Dell provides doesn't appear to work, and their customer service guys don't want to have anything to do with me as long as I'm multibooting. While we're on the topic, have you ever emailed Dell's tech support? They must have some frightfully full-featured, user-friendly, automated form that the tech guys fill out. What it finally translates into is that I am addressed by name in just about every sentence. I'm sure that sounded like a great idea to a bunch of guys at Dell who thought of this. "Let's give it a more personal touch." In the end, it really just comes across as being condescending. Truthfully, I don't want to be talked to the same way as a six-year-old who's not paying attention when you try to get him to eat his vegetables. "Raymond,there can be a couple of reasons for this kind of behaviour. Raymond , first thing we must remember is , the Driver files are different for different operating systems..." You get the idea. Actually, I just seem to have bad luck with tech support in general. I needed to email Symantec the other day because Norton AntiVirus reverted back to its 90 day trial period after reformatting. Of couse, in order to do this, I was first forced to weed through a hopeless maze of handy troubleshooting tips, ultimately leading me to one that suggested I email customer support, which, incidentally, was precisely what I was trying to figure out how to do in the first place. So I emailed them and got a reply back. In their response, they referred me to another troubleshooting tip, not entirely unlike the one I had happened upon, which recommended I wait a while, and then email them. Sounds like a plan. Comments February 6, 2003 Tech Update NVidia. If you haven't been over to their site in a while, you might want to check out their updated drivers (if you have an NVidia graphics card, that is). I installed the drivers after reformatting and found out about "nView" for the first time, in which they've added loads of cool new options. Window transparency, multiple desktops, collapse window to title bar (ala Mac), an always-on-top command for every application, and some other goodies. At the very least, it's fun to play around with for a while. Optical Camouflage. I saw this a while ago but refrained from mentioning it because I didn't care enough to find out if it was real or a hoax. This article popped up recently, so I thought I'd pass it on. Black. What could be better than black? Super-black! February 7, 2003 I'm glad... "When you look at the black, it is an incredibly beautiful surface. It's like black velvet." I'm glad those thousands of dollars were spent on making something look like black velvet. -Victor February 7, 2003 Getting Out The weekend's looking pretty bleak right now, so I'm probably going to come home. If I don't post otherwise, you can assume that I'll be back tonight.		Quick Links - Fun 'n Folly - Juggling Club - RF Haunt - RF Gallery News/Updates HOME - Latest Post ARCHIVE - Full Archive <- PREV | NEXT -> 2/6 - Virtually Helpful 2/4 - Round Two 2/3 - Enter the Contestants 1/12 - Excitement 1/8 - Fashionably Late 12/17 - Finally 12/15 - One of the Above 12/12 - The Most Wonderful Time 12/10 - It's Jazz! Get It? 12/7 - The Shocking Truth Previous 10 shown Read More... 8/6/02 - First Post HOME - Latest Post ARCHIVE - Full Archive
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