Ramblings

I nabbed this movie from Netflix and watched it last night while Legolas was emerging system. All I can say is … corny. I’m sure that in 1951 when it was first released that it was one of the better ones available, but by today’s standards it is downright stupid. The ‘science’ in it is so bad that I almost couldn’t watch it, but I endured and saw it through to the end. It’s not on my list of movies that I would recommend to others :)

Had to buy a couple of network cards. The ones in the two server machines (Gollum and Legolas) are both acting up … although the one in Legolas is by far the worst. I’m hoping that a driver change will make it go smoother, but I’m not taking any chances … there are two 3COM 905CX-TXM cards on the way from Newegg.

The hardware has all been assembled. I must say it looks pretty slick.

I’m in the process of installing right now (well, downloading the Athlon-XP stage 2 file) …

I’m working on some thoughts about the meet this last week, but I’m not ready to post them yet. Once I get everything set out in ink, I’ll post it all.

The PS that came with the case I bought for Legolas is wrong. It has a 24 pin ATX connector when the standard is 20. No idea why. I’m going to run down to the parts store and try to buy a replacement and maybe a few extra splitters while I’m there as I have six devices to hook up.

All the parts arrived about 2:00 this afternoon. I’m in the process of putting everything together. I am taking lots of pictures and I plan to document everything (including the install and configuration process) as I go.

Every year we grow more and more dependent on the Internet. But would you know what to do if your connection suddenly went down?

No one knows when the Internet will fail. It could happen at any time, leaving you bereft of your e-mail, your sports scores, and your Blogs. Therefore, it’s important that you and your family have a contingency plan for just such an emergency. If your connection to Cyberspace were to ever get severed, you should at least be prepared. We have included a few key points that should assist you if that were to happen.

(Read the story …)

It finally caught up to me … I’m sick. Right now it’s just a head cold and I’m hoping it won’t progress any farther than that.

Looks like I have three packages on the way.

Well, back on Monday I thought I had my complete order from Newegg on the way. Well, I was wrong. (I know, that doesn’t happen very often :)

To place the order I used my father’s credit card. He’s funding this project (as he has most of them [Gollum, Frodo, parts in Bilbo] in the past) with no strings attached. Using someone else’s credit card is where my issues started …

I had to place the order in two parts because one of the items I needed two of (the PCI IDE controllers) had a limit of one per customer (basically per order unless you seriously abuse it and then they will crack down). The order that had only a single IDE controller was about $45 and shipped almost immediately. The cost wasn’t high enough for Newegg to do any address verification stuff.

However, the second (actually the first one I placed) order was significantly more than $45. After shipping charges it was approaching $1,000 which was well over the limit that triggers address verification. So, since my address did not match the billing address for the card, the order was put on hold and I was emailed a note telling me I needed to contact Newegg directly to resolve the issue.

Phone Call #1 (2/14/2005): No real suprise here. I was told that I needed to either change the shipping address to the billing address or have the card owner (my dad in this case) add my address to the list of valid shipping addresses for his card. No big deal as I was able to call dad and get him to do that almost immediately.

About 2 hours pass with no email back from Newegg like I was told to expect once my address had been added.

Phone Call #2 (2/14/2005): They looked up my order and asked why I was calling back (they noted each phone call on the order). After explaining that I never recieved the email telling me that everything was OK, I felt the need to check in and make sure that everything was going ahead. I was politely told that everything was fine, but that they needed the contact information on the card holder. No problem … I gave it to them. I was then informed that I should recieve the confirmation email within about two hours. OK, thanks … click.

No email before 5PM, but since they are two hours behind me I figured I’d wait until I got home later that evening (I hung around on campus for a while then headed home). I got home about 6:30 or 7:00 and still hadn’t recieved anything. Since I figured they were wrapping up for the day, I’d just call the next morning.

Phone Call #3 (2/15/2005): I had checked their website before calling and noticed that they had La Porte misspelled (la parte) and figured that may have caused some problem. So, I talked to yet another person at Newegg about my woes. Apparently the bank had rejected the address because Newegg sent them my name with my parent’s address. Wrong! So she fixed that (and the spelling of La Porte) and told me to wait the 1 – 2 hours for the confirmation email.

By the time that I had a chance to follow up on the day’s activities, it was already about 3PM and I still hadn’t recieved the email. So …

Phone Call #4 (2/15/2005): What’s going on? Oh, the bank was closed by the time we got around to trying the information you gave us earlier today (call logs are nice). Man! This is getting rather annoying. I like Newegg, but this was getting out of control. I was told that they would process it as soon as the bank reopened.

And that brings us to this morning. I checked the website … my order was still on hold and I hadn’t recieved any emails indicating what was going on. So …

Phone Call #5 (2/16/2005): Why is my order still on hold? Oh, hang on a second … … … OK, I just ran your order through and everything looks good. (About this time I recieved an email from Newegg letting me know that my order passed the address verification and was on it’s way to getting packaged.) After I made sure that it was indeed proceeding normally again, I hung up. A few minutes later their website updated and now shows that it has made it to step 3 of 5 (packaging and shipping are left).

So it finally appears that my parts are heading this way (well, after packaging).