OK, I got my new PSU (plus a UV cathode light) on Friday. (Which is really nice, because we ordered it Thursday evening around 5:00 our time [4:00 TigerDirect's time]) They have this "Buy today, ships today" thing.... Very nice. Got it out of the packaging, hooked it up... WOOHOO, it works! The LED color changing feature is really nice, but I think I like blue best with the UV light and green UV-reactive cable mesh. I actually think I'm gonna get some other blue LED case fans to replace the ones I have currently. (They're the ones that were included with the case I got... One's red and the other's bluish-green)
Well, I think that's all for now.... Bye!
Monday, February 20, 2006
Thursday, February 16, 2006
I didn't do it! I promise!!
ACK.
OK, so here I was, just minding my own business, when *CLICK* my computer just died. What happened you might ask? My PSU went blooie. :-( I actually had smelled something kinda like burning plastic earlier (you know the smell) and I could *kinda* tell it was coming from the vicinity of my computer, but I couldn't be 100% sure. Well, apparently I was right, cuz *blooie* and it's gone. Now that I have it out, I smelled near the fan on the unit itself, and - WHOO - um, yeah, it was the PSU. BUT, everything else is OK. (I'm typing this on my computer, currently using a loaner PSU from my Dad) The plus side? I get to get a really sweet replacement! I was looking around on Tiger Direct, (great computer place, I must say) and I think I found just the one. Features:
I'll make sure to post details (maybe some pictures too) when I get it. Bye for now!
OK, so here I was, just minding my own business, when *CLICK* my computer just died. What happened you might ask? My PSU went blooie. :-( I actually had smelled something kinda like burning plastic earlier (you know the smell) and I could *kinda* tell it was coming from the vicinity of my computer, but I couldn't be 100% sure. Well, apparently I was right, cuz *blooie* and it's gone. Now that I have it out, I smelled near the fan on the unit itself, and - WHOO - um, yeah, it was the PSU. BUT, everything else is OK. (I'm typing this on my computer, currently using a loaner PSU from my Dad) The plus side? I get to get a really sweet replacement! I was looking around on Tiger Direct, (great computer place, I must say) and I think I found just the one. Features:
- 550 watts
- Adjustable 120mm fan
- Color switchable LED lighting inside (shines out through the fan)
- The cables are wrapped in green UV reactive cable sleeves
- You also get a blue UV-emitting 120mm fan to put anywhere in you case, along with a fan speed control knob thing that can control up to 5 fans (I think you just plug one fan into it, then just daisy-chain the rest from that one, and it controls all of them at once [most case fans have a power connector pass-through] )
I'll make sure to post details (maybe some pictures too) when I get it. Bye for now!
Saturday, February 04, 2006
No, I'm not dead....
*sigh* It's been a while since I've posted. Well, here goes.
Recently (post-wise...) I posted about my new desktop, and Windows XP, and all my favorite freeware apps, and the possibility of installing slamd64, a 64 bit port of Slackware. Well.... I ended up installing Gentoo (they have a 64 bit version) on a second partition, and I love it! I used to wish I could be one of those linux gurus, but never quite figured it out, or something. With Gentoo, you manually install (a neat learning process in itself) a very minimal base system, then build it up with only the stuff YOU want installed. You end up with an extremely personal installation. I've definitely fulfilled my goal to become a "linux geek." I don't even remember the last time I booted into Windoze. (See what I mean? I'm spelling the name of my previous favorite OS the linux user's way!) Right now I typing this in Firefox running in Fluxbox. There's another topic of discussion.
Fluxbox is a linux window manager, and I've fallen in love with it too! It's very simple, but very efficient. The themeing system is very flexible, allowing very simple, to very sweet looking themes. This is what my linux desktop currently looks like:
(If the page that comes up says "This image has been scaled down to fit your computer screen. Click on it to show it in the original size." then click on the image. It's worth it. Otherwise it looks all pixely and junk.)
The system monitor in the upper left-hand corner is called conky. (Don't ask me why) It's a really sweet app that displays right smack on your background, and is TOTALLY configurable.
Another thing: one of the coolest screen savers I think I've ever seen, it's called "fireflies", and it is pure eye candy. Make sure your system has enough oomph to run it though. According to my system monitor in linux, it sucks up about 20% of my 2.4 GHz AMD Athlon 64 3400+.
Last thing: POVRay.
(BTW, I know POVRay has been around for a long time. I'm not posting this because it's new. It's just new to me)
POVRay is a 3D image renderer. It's not a graphical 3D modeller, with a nice GUI, and a drag and drop interface... it's just a renderer. But this program RAWKS!! Pretty much, what you do, is you type into a text file in povray language (a very easy to learn yet flexible language) what you want your scene to look like, and then tell POVRay to render it, and voila! It generates near-photo-quality images from your text file. A very good tutorial can be found here. (The documentation/tutorial included with povray was very confusing to me) I've messed around and made some test/example scenes...
Neat, huh? As you can see, it produces very high quality images. I'm still learning, and these are just sample/just for messing around images.
The POVRay Hall of Fame is here. Note, however, that some of these might have been helped, (external modellers that export to povray, etc.) but they've all been rendered with POVRay. Amazing.
Well, I think that's about it for now. See ya'll later!
Recently (post-wise...) I posted about my new desktop, and Windows XP, and all my favorite freeware apps, and the possibility of installing slamd64, a 64 bit port of Slackware. Well.... I ended up installing Gentoo (they have a 64 bit version) on a second partition, and I love it! I used to wish I could be one of those linux gurus, but never quite figured it out, or something. With Gentoo, you manually install (a neat learning process in itself) a very minimal base system, then build it up with only the stuff YOU want installed. You end up with an extremely personal installation. I've definitely fulfilled my goal to become a "linux geek." I don't even remember the last time I booted into Windoze. (See what I mean? I'm spelling the name of my previous favorite OS the linux user's way!) Right now I typing this in Firefox running in Fluxbox. There's another topic of discussion.
Fluxbox is a linux window manager, and I've fallen in love with it too! It's very simple, but very efficient. The themeing system is very flexible, allowing very simple, to very sweet looking themes. This is what my linux desktop currently looks like:
(If the page that comes up says "This image has been scaled down to fit your computer screen. Click on it to show it in the original size." then click on the image. It's worth it. Otherwise it looks all pixely and junk.)
The system monitor in the upper left-hand corner is called conky. (Don't ask me why) It's a really sweet app that displays right smack on your background, and is TOTALLY configurable.
Another thing: one of the coolest screen savers I think I've ever seen, it's called "fireflies", and it is pure eye candy. Make sure your system has enough oomph to run it though. According to my system monitor in linux, it sucks up about 20% of my 2.4 GHz AMD Athlon 64 3400+.
Last thing: POVRay.
(BTW, I know POVRay has been around for a long time. I'm not posting this because it's new. It's just new to me)
POVRay is a 3D image renderer. It's not a graphical 3D modeller, with a nice GUI, and a drag and drop interface... it's just a renderer. But this program RAWKS!! Pretty much, what you do, is you type into a text file in povray language (a very easy to learn yet flexible language) what you want your scene to look like, and then tell POVRay to render it, and voila! It generates near-photo-quality images from your text file. A very good tutorial can be found here. (The documentation/tutorial included with povray was very confusing to me) I've messed around and made some test/example scenes...
Neat, huh? As you can see, it produces very high quality images. I'm still learning, and these are just sample/just for messing around images.
The POVRay Hall of Fame is here. Note, however, that some of these might have been helped, (external modellers that export to povray, etc.) but they've all been rendered with POVRay. Amazing.
Well, I think that's about it for now. See ya'll later!
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