doom, Doom, DOOM!!!

Okay, so, Tim's new computer. Delivered it last week, setup was a breeze, kid was happy as could be, and all seemed well... Until we got to work on cleaning-up the old one for use as an Internet box (plus there was still some data transfer to do). There was some malware to remove, defragmentation to done, left-over stuff to be cleaned-out, etc... That all seemed to go just swimmingly until I did the final restart and Windows wouldn't boot (system file errors). Tried everything from Knoppix to enclosures and recovery software to get at the most important files (his data drive was fine, but there was some stuff on the system drive that he needed), but I was getting weird ownership errors and such (even after altering those atrributes and removing passwords). Finally, after getting all but some of his Cygwin-related stuff, I said fuck it, we got most of it, and there was a possibility that one of his developer friends had some recent back-ups of the stuff we were missing. Format, re-install. It was during the re-installation of Windows XP that I finally realized what the problem was... Tim had insisted on upgrading his 896MB of RAM to 1024MB by replacing the 128MB stick with a 256MB stick he'd pulled from a computer he got from his buddy... Yeah, never bothered to run Memtest86, and yeah, it was bad, and the cause of all of our problems. Fucking hell. Anyway, that's all up and running and fixed now, and he'll be investing in a router, a KVM switch, and a PCI video card so that he can have a sweet triple-monitor workstation to work at.

I've taken on a few service orders this past week that include a half-assedly-built Athlon XP 2000+ system that was wired oddly and was using no hard drive newer than seven years old, an "unclassified" decomissioned Dell from the US government (this one came to me through a tattoo parlour employee who picked it up from a doctor's office), and a wireless home network that was using a combination of no-name and TRENDnet wireless adapters to 'steal' a signal from a Linksys router next door... Where the woman's parents lived. Fun times, let me tell you. A follow-up on the $5000 video-editing machine: The Avid software he's using doesn't work in Windows XP x64, so I set-up a dual-boot for him... The 32-Bit version of XP Pro only sees 3GB of RAM, but he'll live. I have two more potential customers in the works, and one in progress, so expect more exciting stories in the coming days.

Anyway, on to that new video card I stuck in my Linux box! Got me a 256MB XFX GeForce 6200. Now all I need is a motherboard that supports AGP8x ;) That's the last part I'd like to upgrade in that thing (not a big fan of my current SiS 651 chipset), but there's no rush, and the video card runs very well at AGP4x; it's quite nice to be able to play UT2004 in Linux at 1024x768 with all of the settings turned to the maximum :)

There's a nice segue into games... Yup, I got more. I decided to suck it up and just go for beefing-up my 32X collection. I bought a bunch of those crappy sports games I never wanted, like NFL Quarterback Club, RBI Baseball '95, and Golf Magazine Presents 36 Great Holes Starring Fred Couples. They're all horrible. I also grabbed Doom Troopers: Mutant Chronicles for the Genesis (it was cheap, and on sale; fun 2D action game), as well as Wonder Boy and Vigilante for my newly-acquired SEGA Master System. Then there were the impulse buys of Bonk's Revenge (TG16), Project: Snowblind (PC), and Astro Boy: Omega Factor (GBA); they were all pretty cheap (sale, clearance, and used, respectively). Project: Snowblind is the spiritual sequel to Deus Ex: Invisible War (one of my favourite games), and Astro Boy is a fantastic 2D action game from Treasure, one of the most revered 2D action game developers of all time. Next to pick-up on the GBA list is Gunstar Super Heroes, also from Treasure. Oh yeah, I also happened across a copy of the first Otogi game for XBOX! It was the lone copy siting in a Wal-Mart, which was kinda strange, since I haven't seen this game, new or used, anywhere for at least a year or so (and I'd been kicking myself for not buying it back when it was available everywhere). Whatever, I have it now :)

Finally, Yakuza was released for PS2 in North America on Tuesday... It's on sale at Best Buy for $45 CDN, but I resisted. Too much on my plate right now, but some day soon, I'll get to enjoy that Shenmue-inspired goodness I've been hearing about.