Zip Zoom no fly
I can’t believe it is already Sunday. Where does the time go?
Quick update on the computer order
Sure enough, as suspected the ZipZoomFly delivery didn’t make it on Friday. ZZF had hands down the best overall apples-to-apples prices and offered free standard ground shipping on most products. If you are not in any particular hurry ZZF is a great deal. But I paid extra for 2nd day delivery and a week is not satisfactory.
Will I use them again, of course. Will their performance on express delivery affect my buying decisions on items needed in a rush? Of course. Maybe up to 15%.
On the Linux box:
There seems to be a major malfunction with this beeyotch. I installed a different power supply, supposedly known to be in working order, and still Suse wont turn on. I tried rubbing her power button just right and nary a flicker.
Shoot. This is a conundrum because now I have a decision fork, three pronged in this case.
- Is the button switch bad? How often does that happen? Not too often I suspect. I don’t recall ever having a bad button switch service call.
- Is the motherboard fried? There are decent odds that if the power supplied fried, the motherboard could be fried. Usually the power supply sacrifices itself to save the computer, but that is not always the case. Bad power conditions over the long term can stress every component in a system and the final fatal surge or spike can have multiple casualties.
- Did I replace a bad power supply with a bad power supply? With used parts from a storage bin you never know.
This is a relatively low-end machine. A 1GHz Intel Celeron circa 2002 built on the cheap for strictly utilitarian purposes it was nothing to write home about in 2002. I don’t know if I want to spend too much more time jacking around with it. I can order a 2 GHz P4 chip with motherboard and a new power supply for a hundred bucks. Probably less.
iPod/iTunes support.
Yesterday I learned that to get the most enjoyment from an iPod you have to a better PC than a Dell Dimension 500L.
I stick the biggest dog in TheGarage’s PC inventory in the house for the kids to use. Up until recently it was all they needed since Nicktoon and Disney Channel websites and Reader Rabbit games were not big resource hounds. Can’t say the same for Apple’s iTunes.
I had an urgent request come in for software support: Could I download and install the latest iTunes so my daughter can buy videos from iStore? Sure I can.
No biggie, took about ten minutes and it was free. Except that now the old Dell can’t run iTunes and play the video. With a quick glance I noticed the on-board graphics was being used and taking pity I decide to give Cool-Kidz, the computer name, a quick upgrade that will hopefully be good enough to allow some semblance of the video to play. I figured an old Radeon 7000 64 Meg card ought to take quite a load off the processor and RAM.
No good deed goes unpunished.
The drivers I had for the ATI Radeon wouldn’t work because at some point Cool-Kidz was updated DirectX to version 9, a natural occurence of loading new software. The drivers I had checked the system for DirectX8 and could not recognize the newer DirectX 9, even though backwards compatibility is one of the hallmarks of DirectX. I have to download a 40 meg package to get the drivers I need.
In the end, iTunes running on the Dell with a 64 meg Radeon graphics card still wont play the video purchased from iStore. Of course you can only play video purchased from iStore on iTunes, I think, or an iPod with video, which we don’t have. We have an iPod Nano.
Interesting how a simple toy can drive big box consumer electronic purchases.