Category Archives: ResCom

Those little things that save your ass…

There are three things I always take with me when I do some work on a computer, except for when I’m working with ResCom (damn you overly restrictive policies!). Specifically, three cases, each containing a different set of tools.

Data Recovery: USB to SATA/IDE 5.25/3.5/2.5 converter

Hardware: COMTOP repair kit, modified thusly:

Software: CD case with a CD of every OS I’ve ever worked on, plus the ResCom CD, and GPartEd live CD.

These three cases, which easily fit into a small sack and made the trip into New York City with me every day this summer, have saved countless computers, seen the building of 6 computers from the ground up, and figured out (and usually fixed) every problem I’ve come across, cost me just about $200, but has made me hundreds of times that amount since then.  I thought I’d just share what my toolkit consists of so anyone out there wondering what combination works best can see what worked for me.

Now back to CNN’s Super Tuesday coverage. Clinton’s still pontificating, but hopefully she’ll stop soon.

Bear Stearns, then back to school

 I sent in my resume to Bear Stearns early in the week, was asked in for an interview the next day, and by Wednesday I heard those beautiful words: “when can you start?” They want me to do some on-demand programming, so it sounds like it’s going to be pretty fun.
School started up on the 11th, and I signed up for the first few shifts back at ResCom. Saturday night was a completely East dominated shift, the lazy Pollock workers not even bothering to show up. Tom is back, which was a surprise, but it’s good to see him again.

I confirmed that my server at home is functioning perfectly, I’m able to restart it without any issues remotely, and data flows through the proxy at about 300 kb/s, which isn’t great, but it’s better than nothing at all.

Classes are starting up too, nothing terribly interesting though. It’s been a slow first week, but it’ll pick up. It always does.

I hate Macs

And not just for the usual “Fischer-Price My First Computer” reasons, I had to replace the hard drive in a iBook G4 today. In order to even see the hard drive, I needed to remove the back panel, the keyboard, wireless card, RAM, shimmy open the top, remove parts of the motherboard, then finally a metal sheet over the hard drive. And I’ve got like 13 screws I can’t figure out where to put. The good news, however, is that it works fine, and is installing Leopard as we speak. Scratch that, looks like another hour of fiddling yet to go.

In other news, I’m finally all caught up on House. I’ve been watching the entire back catalouge in my free time, and I’m up to the episode I started watching with Mike last year.  So now I’m on to the next TV series I need to watch, and I don’t know what it is yet, but Mike said he had something for me.

Speaking of Mike, I’m also playing Deus Ex for the first time, and it’s pretty damn good, for something that was released before I owned my first real computer.

IST House meeting tonight about amendments to the Constitution, but other than that, everything seems to be on track for the end of the semester.

Stuck in East…

The manager promotions happened this week for the next semester, and apparently (1) Mike R and James (who I trained) are being moved up in West and Pollock, and I’m doomed to life in East… forever. It’s not all bad, Reber’s going to start handing me the keys to the programming castle, so I guess it’ll be a learning experience. Plus, I’m at the very top of a very short list for manager next time a position becomes available. I’m not that disappointed, because being a tech is fun as hell, but I could have used that extra dollar an hour…

Speaking of extra dollars, WEMED wants me back for Christmas break. Which is awesome, since I’ll be making my beer money extra fast, and working with some fun guys again. Although New York in Winter may not be the most fun, it’s gotta be better than the summer.

Housing contracts stop taking requests tomorrow, and I’m still being pestered by people asking for rooms, even singles (which the deadline was over a month ago), and I can’t do anything to help them. They had weeks to get in touch with me, and if they can’t be arsed to send me a single email in time, then I can’t be arsed to lift a finger to help them.

But, unfortunately, some students can’t see the house as an option on their request when they really should. This, coupled with the fact that the ListServ keeps dropping people at random, makes me lose faith in the integrity of Penn State’s computers.