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Well, I'm working on another computer project
December 29, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Projects
 Well, I'm working on another computer project. For Christmas, I was going to take my dad's old computer and fix it up for Jenny and Darren. Unfortunately, I ordered the wrong type of video card. The AGP Geforce2 MX wouldn't fit in my dad's old computer (PCI only).
So, instead of letting a good video card go to waste, having the Lego computer languish in disrepair, and taking advantage of the really low computer prices, I decided to buy a new Duron 700 processor, motherboard, case, and memory for Jenny's new computer.
I'll end up with a decent computer for the new Lego case, Jenny will end up with a pretty spiffy computer, and I'm going to actually use all the miscellaneous computer hardware I have floating around.
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Well, it's official
December 10, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Projects
 Well, it's official. I got my case up on a real web site. I even got a piece of fan mail. Take a look!
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The Lego case lives! Sam was up late last ni...
November 12, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Projects
 The Lego case lives! Sam was up late last night, so I was puttering around before going to bed. I decided to clean out my closets, most of which consisted of marginal computer hardware. Several months ago, I had tried to convert my brother-in-law's old Packard Bell into a custom Lego case. It worked great, until it mysteriously died. Well, I decided to give it one more chance and it came to life! It's still early in the rebuilding process, but if all goes well, the Lego case will return in all its glory.
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Hey - I got a new webcam! This time, it real...
November 05, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Projects
 Hey - I got a new webcam! This time, it really works (unlike the D-Link, which doesn't seem to work with my D-Link board). I also picked up a digital camera for real cheap. Hopefully, I can set it up so that we can have a virtual Sadie for Thanksgiving this year. She can eat her dorm Thanksgiving turkey and we'll move the webcam into the living room. Should be quite amusing.
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Well, I sold my secondary computer to David l...
October 26, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Projects
Well, I sold my secondary computer to David last night. I think he was quite the happy camper, as it was quite a bit less than what he thought he was going to have to spend, and the system is fairly decent. I'm amazed at how much it costs to buy an entire system, when you can put the pieces together for quite a bit less. I suppose not everyone is comfortable doing it, plus you have to shop around for good deals to really make it worth while.
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tinboy
October 19, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Projects
 tinboy.com lives! I installed the Personal Web Server on my main computer and moved over the main files. For some reason, I got a bunch of errors (probably Windows Millenium). I uninstalled and reinstalled and it went much better the second time around. I still want to get a web cam put together, but I'm having problems with my current one. Netmeeting locks up (sniff). I may have to actually call tech support.
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Hmm
October 17, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Projects
 Hmm. Took tinboy.com off the air last night. Having a second PC is a little unnecessary at the moment. What I may do is use tinboy.com's IP address on my current PC and install Personal Web Server. Then I'd probably just leave my current PC on.
The only down side with that is that my current PC sounds like a jet engine taking off, with all the cooling modifications I've made. I think my next PC will sacrifice looks and some performance for noise supression.
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Well, tinboy
October 16, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Projects
Well, tinboy.com is up and running. Now the real question is what to do with it. Sadly, I think I'm starting to realize that having a server at home isn't really all that necessary. The content I put on adamandjamie.com should be more than enough (even if I do put out some home movies). I almost never have people come over to my house to play games (about once a month or so). Rarely do Jamie and I want to use the computer at the same time.
I think I'm slowly realizing that at the moment, we only need one computer at home. What that means, I'm not sure. There are plenty of people who would like to snap up the second computer. Still, I might find some use for it. I'll probably need to think some more and talk to Jamie a bit.
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I'm slowly transforming my second home comput...
October 12, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Projects
 I'm slowly transforming my second home computer into an Internet server. I installed all the server software and I registered a new domain name: tinboy.com. Now, it doesn't really go anywhere at the moment, but it has a kickin' logo. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with it yet, either. Perhaps streaming some home videos and hosting game servers. I guess it doesn't really matter if you've got a kickin' logo.
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I think the case modification madness is fina...
September 29, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Projects
I think the case modification madness is finally over. I wrote up a little piece on the experience. I think the moral of the story is to stick to pre-fab cases whenever possible. I just don't have the time for what it takes to customize a case and do a great job.
On the up side, DSL has been working great for me. The amount of things you can do with it is phenomenal. For those with high-bandwidth connections and an enjoyment of Matrix-like gunfights, I highly recommend The Killer Bean 2. Another good site is Ad Critic.
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The dream machine is complete
September 03, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Projects
The dream machine is complete. Both switches work now - one is hooked up to the rear fan. The other goes to the blue neon light.
I'm embarrased to say that I can't stop. I have the addiction. The next step involves taking my sister's old Packard Bell and a couple tubs of Legos to build a firewall (assuming I get cable some day).
The first few steps went poorly. I glued together some remaining sheets of Lucite (clear plastic). I decided that an entire case made out of it would provide no RF blockage as well as some poor heat dissipation/grouding. So, it's off to Home Depot to buy sheet metal, tin snips, and some brackets.
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I got the light yesterday
August 24, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Projects
I got the light yesterday. As you can see from the picture, it looks pretty cool. I still want to secure the light inside the case a bit more, and I want to hook up some fans to the other switch.
In the immortal words of Dr. Sbatso: "crazy, crazy, la la la, crazy crazy."
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The computer madness continues
August 21, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Projects
The computer madness continues. While Jamie and Sam were away for the weekend, I took apart my computer and performed a large number of modifications.
I painted everything glossy black, including the CD faceplates. The buttons are all midnight blue. This part took forever, especially sanding places where I screwed up and had to repaint.
I also added a window by cutting a hole in the side and gluing in a panel of clear lucite. Soon I'll plug in a blue neon light so you can see the insides.
Finally, I added a "control panel" in the front. It has a clock and two switches. The switches will go to the light and fan. Still have to wire that up.
All in all, it was a fun little experience. My dad helped a ton, especially with cutting the case. It's a good thing Jamie was out of town. For several days, I had computer parts laying about as paint dried. I'll hopefully be able to clean up before she comes back to town tonight.
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I put together a new computer over the last c...
August 03, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Projects
I put together a new computer over the last couple days. I spent about $450 on parts, combined the used PC I bought from work, and threw in my old Dell for good measure.
The Dell is going to Seraph and Robbie, so I put in the 2.5 GB hard drive from the used computer, got it all configured, and stripped out the CD drive and floppy for the new computer. Before they move, I plan on getting my hands on their old computer and merging it with the Dell.
The parts for the new box showed up Tuesday. Sam helped me put it together, and I tried to keep him from whacking the motherboard with the screwdriver. I threw in a 550E Pentium III processor, my Dell's old hard drive, and 64 MB Corsair memory. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to overclock over 612 Mhz, though the memory would run at CAS 2 at 145 Mhz. It's not as fast as my old device, but it does seem to run pretty well. I had to get a new network card, as the Linksys has bad problems with the Soyo board and IRQ conflicts.
So, my home LAN is complete. I hopefully won't have another major upgrade for a year or so. I'll probably wait until the Pentium 4's are cheap and give one of my boxes to the next needy family member.
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I may be doing it again
July 26, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Projects
I may be doing it again. I picked up a used PC from work for $20. It had a 2.5 GB hard drive and a monitor that I'll probably salvage. I should be able to spend another $400 or so, combine it with those and other parts I have lying around, and come up with two fairly good PCs. I'm going to wait until Jamie and Sam head up to Portland to actually do the deed, but my scheming can continue until then . . .
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Well, I passed another nerd milestone - assem...
May 14, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Projects
Well, I passed another nerd milestone - assembling my computer from pieces and then overclocking it. What's overclocking, you ask? Well, it's kind of the nerd equivalent of muscle cars. Let's proceed with the story . . .
I bought a system that had a Pentium III 550E processor and got it up and running. Surprisingly, all went well. Although overclocking is pretty easy to do with my motherboard, I wanted to hold off until I got proper cooling for my CPU. I ordered a Vantec CPU cooler and finally it arrived.
Putting the CPU cooler on was the hardest part of the entire experience. I pulled the processor out of the case, then removed the wimpy Intel fan. Taking pliers and a heavy screwdriver, I tore the plastic and metal surrounding the juicy high-tech insides. The sounds of crunching were a bit unnerving, and I kept thinking how I was invalidating the warranty in a big way. With the last of the CPU case removed, I slapped on the Vantec double-fan black matte cooler. Threw it back into the case, hooked up the fan monitor, and turned it on. Checked the CPU temperature and it was running nicely around 27 degrees Celsius, a few degrees better than normal.
Next step, overclocking. Shut down and booted into the BIOS. I took a leap from the 100 Mhz frontside bus speed up to 133 Mhz. Rebooted - no problems. My 550E was running at 733 rock solid. I kept increasing the FSB speed over and over until I finally pushed it beyond what God and man had intended. The end result? My $200 550E was running at 825 Mhz - a processor which cost around $700.
All-in-all, it was a pretty exciting experience. Not only did I save a bundle in processor costs, but I had a great time doing it myself. Sure, I have a couple quirky things like the network card doesn't work in my new system, but they're pretty minor. Plus, going from my old 300 Mhz processor to this one is an amazing improvement.
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Well, I went out and bought some stocks on E*...
March 11, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Projects
Well, I went out and bought some stocks on E*Trade. I'm doing fairly well, having bought Lucent when it was low. I bought Microsoft a bit high, as well as AOL, which as kept going down. Overall, I'm about 8% above where I started. After commissions, however, I've probably only made a couple hundred bucks. Seems like a lot of work for so little return. Oh well, at least it's kinda fun.
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I'm trying hard to get all my investments sor...
January 04, 2000 by Adam in Adam's Projects
I'm trying hard to get all my investments sorted out. I'm only 30, but it's pretty clear to me that investing for the future is where it's at. I may even start buying individual stocks.
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