ALIKATNZ.COM

Well, I am back online and my connection is stable – with many thanks to an intervention from a certain #geekzone lurker who shall remain nameless. He knows who he is and that I am eternally grateful for his assistance.

That said – Going without internet for more than 24 hours helped me realise the extent of my internet addiction. I do not know what is the more desperate sign – going to my parents to bludge their connection, or connecting up my mobile phone to my laptop to use as a Modem.

Either way, I have to face facts that I am hooked and live my life online. A sign of the times perhaps? Maybe not these times. Seems like only yesterday I was in IRC channels talking to people in Mississippi. And thanks to them, I can spell the name of that state.

Without internet, I wouldn’t have ordered the organic parrot food, the HP printer cartridge, shopped around for the best deal, so that I got a free 100 pack of 6×4 photo paper. I wouldn’t have purchased two SD cards an a camera battery from the online retailer who makes some bricks and mortar stores look like rip off merchants.

Given that I have grown up on PCs and can chart my childhood, teenage years and the first decade of adult life through the generations of dial up, x86 series intel chips, I can remember when there were three chip manufacturers – AMD, Intel and Cyrix. When RAM cost more than a tyre for a car and still does, depending on the tyre.

Because this generation is wired and going wireless. Ask me two years ago if I would have had a laptop and a wireless router in my house and I would have said no. Today, I have a laptop, wireless router and other devices that all access the wireless access point. Somethings that never crossed my mind two years ago.

So maybe I shouldn’t turn a blind eye to this new technology. I am reading computer magazines and forums again, because when it comes time to embrase the next big thing in IT, I want to know what it is and how to get the most value from it.

This house nearly came apart at the seams. At 7pm last night, we left the internet, working and we then left the house. We returned somewhere around midnight-ish. Shock horror, no internet. Reset modem (#1), nothing. Reset again (#2) and still nothing. Check settings, okay, no DNS information coming from Telecom exchange.

Phone telecom. 15 minutes on hold at midnight. Get hold of call centre in Manilla/Vanilla/Ice Ice Baby and explain whats happening. Reset modem (#4, #5 & #6) check settings. Man promises my a 12 hour pro-rata credit on phone bill. He says will get the pvc server reset in the morning.

Get up at 9.30am (sleep in!) and look at internet. Still not going. Reset modem (#7). Check, still no IP address issued from Telecom. Call Telecom. Manilla Ice much faster to answer this time. Explain it all again. Reset modem countless times, including factory reset.

Factory resets are where the modem is retored to well, its factory default. Doing this erases all Telecom settings. Later on in the afternoon it will dawn on me that the settings have changed and that the Manilla Ice has assumed I have a telecom standard modem (I dont). He says that he will get a technician to call me ater 3pm. Its now 10am. hmm… 3pm is a long way to go if you’ve got no broadband.

I tell him my credit better be worth it because as I’m on the top level residential plan, I expect better than this for my $$$ (40gb per month for $80 with free static IP address, unlimited speeds in both directions… currently pulling 6.8mbps and not even on ADSL2+ yet – another story for another day) He told me I would get one months credit on my broadband bill. Yay!

3pm and the technician calls. Go through with him all the same stuff I had been through with the Manilla and Vanilla Ice Ice Baby. He establishes I’m making a DSL sync (I could have told him that, I did, he didnt listen) and so the fault must be in the grey pillar beside the road, in the cabinet or at the exchange. Hes escalated the issue and will send a technician tomorrow. Tomorrow is Monday. This is a day of work, where one earns wages to pay the broadband bill. I point this out to him.

Right now, I am wanting to cry. Break down in tears in my computer room and sob because I cannot cope without internet for 12 hours, how can I cope without internet for two nights? Its unheard of!

Anyway, after some #geekzone intervention, we’re back online, although the connection is difficult and misbehaving like a kid in a toy store, but oh gosh its nice to be back online. Just not sure how long for. I will make sure I get that credit on my phone bill too. I will hold them to it by gosh.

On another note, Windows 7 is still impressing me. I have not yet installed any software (been playing games) but have made the decision that when it comes up for sale as a finished OS, I will upgrade my desktop and most likely my laptop. I was going to switch my laptop to Linux, but seeing how fantastic W7 is with its power settings, It would be worth it. Again, I haven’t had W7 and Vista running on the same machine, so I cannot make direct comparisons, but may for fun, do a dual installation on my laptop so that I can.

For all those of you – like me – who couldn’t find the answer of how to dual boot XP with W7, heres the skinny. I have managed this and havent found a single clue on any forums.

1. Back up and create restore disks of your main OS (XP Pro SP3 in my case)
2. Burn whichever ISO you’re going to use to a bootable DVD.
3. Install separate HDD in PC (I installed a 2nd 80GB Sata drive)
4. Boot into XP. Still boots? Good! Check drive there. Yes? Even Betterer.
5. Shut down and boot off DVD
6. Follow the prompts. Select the drive you wish to install W7 on.
7. Follow more prompts. When rebooting for the 2nd time, remove DVD from drive and at the boot selector – Select Windows 7. It will restart again.
8. Repeat above.

I can’t remember past here, its a bit of a blur. I have never run Vista on this machine, so direct comparisons on this hardware are not really fair. But my initial impressions are excellent and I am impressed thus far with the themes, GUI and speed of which the machine runs. I also enjoy the lack of interruption from the UAC that youget with Vista. However, it is now 11.30pm and my shoulder is killing me. I will end this entry with a screen shot of my Windows 7 desktop as it stands tonight!

Virgin W7 Desktop

So I thought I would share tonight exactly what this compaq is. Obviously, its a Pressario and has a black case.

Athlon XP 2500+ (1.83ghz), 1gb ram, 40GB HDD (5400RPM) and CD-RW. Nothing fantastic, but Linux seems to enjoy it.

The main desktop is:-

Athlon 64 X2 2.4ghz , Asus M2N-VA HDMI Mobo, Asus GeForce 9400GT 512mb DDR2 Video Card, 4GB DDR2-800mhz RAM with 1x80GB 7200RPM Sata Drive, 1x 250GB 7200RPM IDE Drive and 1x Lightscribe DVD-RW.

Right now I am researching how to do a dual boot of Windows 7 and Windows XP Pro SP3 from seperate hard drives. Just from what I have been hearing, I think I will upgrade the main desktop and two laptops to W7 upon final release and add a dual boot for linux as well.

If anyone has any suggestions for a good dual-boot setup for XP Pro SP3 and W7 using two seperate HDD’s – please comment and let me know!