Holy crap it's fast!

I got the install finalized and BF2 running yesterday, I'm hoping to run a few tests over the next week and see just how fast it is. I'm also hoping to find a cheap copy of Windows XP, I'm hesitant to pay $100 for an OS so close to the release of Vista, so I may stick with Windows 2000 until I go to Vista instead.

Anyway, some thoughts on the computer and parts:
Core 2 E6300 - Very very fast from what I've seen so far. Currently selling for $180, it's hard to beat the performance/price ratio. I haven't played with overclocking it yet, but that's on the to-do list and I think that a 25% gain is very realistic. The heatsink I'm not a huge fan (hah, get it, huge fan?) of. It works, it keeps the CPU alive and at low temperatures. But I don't like how the blades are somewhat exposed and you run a slight risk of having a cable rub on them if you don't watch it. I'm also not fond of the way the heatsink attaches to the MoBo with four plastic anchors, it just seems flimsy to me and you can't visually verify that they are 100% locked in place without taking the Mobo out of the case. It also takes a fair amount of pressure to lock the heat sink in place, no likey. Keep in mind, it's a problem I have with the design of the current generation of heat sink fasteners, not this particular one.

GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 MoBo - First off, I had to RMA the first one. I RMA'd the MoBo, CPU and RAM simply because of Neweggs return rules (CPUs have to be returned within 30 days), but I strongly suspect the MoBo was the culprit.
Physical hardware installation was straight forward enough, no surprises or oddities there. The board is easy to work with as far as CPU/RAM/card installation goes. Everything is easy to find and the manual does a good job of describing what goes where.
However, I'd have a hard time recomending it unless you have some time to research issues with it. From reading some of the Core 2 / DS3 forums I get the impression that the DS3 is a great Motherboard, if it works. I had issues with the first one and found out that the DS3 sometimes has issues with IDE CD Roms, so I placed another order for a SATA drive before I returned the MoBo. It may work for you, it works for me, but just a heads up. I'm looking forward to testing the overclocking abilities as well. Comes with 4x SATA cables, 1xIDE 133, 1x floppy cable.

Startup, the POST is sloooooow. I'll have to look into why it takes a couple of minutes to get through the POST/device detection screen. Once it starts to load the OS, it's very fast.

Boot device order, for some reason the order isn't honored. I think it may be because I'm running a SATA CD rom and a IDE harddrive. It always tries to boot from CD first, and if a bootable CD isn't present, it gives an error. So I have to have a bootable CD in, and then choose to not boot from it, weird.

Drivers, the MoBo required the installation of drivers for the onboard devices to function. It seems odd to me that even sound doesn't work out of the box, but whatever, driver install was painfree. Are drivers available for Linux, other O/S?

2GB Mushkin 667 RAM - Seems to work well. It's not on the official Gigabyte compatability list, so I was a bit nervous about it working, but so far no problems. When I bought it, it was on sale, for the current price there may be better options out there. I opted for DDR2 667 rather than 800 out of price considerations, from the reviews I've read 800 doesn't improve performance enough to be worth the money.

BFG Geforce 7600GT 256MB - On sale when I bought it, but the performance seems to be solid. It runs BF2 at 1600x1200/2xAA with everything on high without stuttering even a little. It looks like a completely different game now, just gorgeous. I was intending for this to be a stop gap card until the DX10 cards come out, but it looks like it may last longer than I thought, based on first impressions. A better indicator of expected life is how soon I start punching the keyboard saying "Oh you mother fucker, if it weren't for this piece of shit video card I'd have blown your ass away! Fucking video lag!"

Antec Case - Much appreciate the Antec suggestion from earlier JE's. This is a good case that's very easy to work with. Lots of screws and well laid out internally. A few things though: I could not find any screws that fit the holes for the PCI/PCI-E cards, missing screws or bad threads in the holes? Either way, I ended up forcing some in there to hold the cards in place. The power button is hidden behind the front panel so you have to open it every time you want to power it on, or put a cd in. I think the front panel will go buh-bye fairly quick.

Antec powersupply - Again, bought it on sale with a much lower price than the current one. What is there to say about a PSU without bringing in an oscillator? Oh yeah, lots and lots of wires. 5xMolex+floppy on 2 wires, 2xPCI-E on 2 wires, 1xdedicated fan wire, 1x20+4 main, 1xCPU fan wire, 4xSATA on 2 wires... In fact, if you don't have a whole lot of drives in your computer, you may find that you'll have a huge pile of unused wire still around.

Total cost at time of purchase: Roughly $800

I'm hoping to install the BF2142 demo and also run some performance tests in the next few weeks. It should be interesting to compare to the old machine.

Just finished installing Windows 2000, so no first impressions yet. I'm hoping to get BF2 installed tomorrow sometime.

If only it'd download the windows update patches faster...

These are things I have learned recently, and I maintain that they have no correlation to any resumes I may or may not have read the past few days. Nope, just random thoughts.

Do: Highlight acomplishments in a prevous position.
Don't: Attribute those accomplishments to "Loop optimization".
Comment: I attribute the great success in my projects to variable declarations. They were critical to several pieces of software I have worked on recently. Oh, and "if" statements. If statements are fucking awesome.

Do: Elaborate on relevant experience.
Don't: Write a novel.
Comment: If your resume is more than 2 pages + cover, it had better be good. Fluff makes baby Jesus cry.

Do: Customize your cover letter.
Don't: Repeatedly reference "your company" or "this position" while avoiding the actual names.
Comment: Dear [CANDIDATES NAME], we at [COMPANY NAME] must inform you that our bullshit detectors were overloaded in regards to your cover letter in the application for the [POSITION NAME] position, you probably failed before I even read your resume. Sincerely, [YOUR NAME HERE]

Do: Take an interest in the company and the purpose of it, add this to the cover letter.
Don't: Use a standard cover letter with spelling errors or incorrect use of technical terms.
Comment: Seriously, if you write a cover letter that shows that you spent 5 minutes learning about the company, actually read the job description, and have a reasonable grasp of English, you'll be in the top third.

Do: Praise the things you agree with.
Don't: Exagerrate your praise.
Comment: Our "excellent reputation"? While we're arguably the largest company in the US of our type, we're also probably not known to anyone except our immediate partners.

Do: Have references prepared.
Don't: Waste half a page listing them.
Comment: We assume that you can produce a list if asked at or after your interview.

Summary
Write a cover letter, list education, experience, and primary duties. Write a cover letter. Briefly mention the technologies you used in the execution of those duties. Write a cover letter.

Oh, and write a cover letter.

Take an interest and show that you want the job. Any one can be an "excellent asset", now tell me why you want to be one.

If that looks good, we'll give you a call. /Powertrippin

Oh my gawd.

You didn't...

Why would you...?

Nononono.

Is this a normal reaction to reading resumes?

I need to bring up my own old resume and see how it compares.

I left the room to go check on dinner while Mercer decided to take off his pants and underwear and go potty.

I walk back in to find him dismantling his potty, that now only has a few drops in it... The rest being lost in the carpet.

But at least he went in the right place.

But this time I'm behind the desk rather than in front of it.

Or well, my desk is facing a wall, so technically I'll be behind the desk, and they'll be even further behind it.

We've opened up a position for a web developer and are starting to accept resumes. We have an idea of what we want but will hammer it out in more detail in the next few weeks before we bring people in.

The position is posted on careerbuilder (If you want a direct link, send me an email or ask in the journal, but obviously you can find it anyway with a minimum of detective work):

Applications Developer
 
[Company] has an entry-to-mid level web-based applications developer position available at its corporate office in Columbia, SC.
 
Candidate will be involved in application development with an emphasis on front-end web-based development. Please note this is NOT a web designer position.
 
The candidate must have 2+ years of full-time professional application development experience using Microsoft ASP/VB.NET, SQL Server, and Visual Studio. Experience with ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005 are preferred.
 
Education requirements include at least an associate degree in computer science, science or engineering.

Focus will initally be on producing ASP.Net pages/applications rapidly. Reporting experience (Report server, Crystal etc) would be great as would some basic system understanding. We're a small shop so you have to wear a couple hats in the IS dept. We're definitely not looking for an architect or senior developer, but some SE/SDLC experience would make my life easier.

The sysadmin and I will focus on the technical part of it, leave the stupid HR questions to the bossman hisself. Having never done this before, I'm not entirely sure what I should ask or test. I want to weed out the obvious bullshitters so essentially, if you can write basic CRUD stored procedures, and build ASP.net forms around them, you'd pass the technical part. An ability to solve problems, being a thinker and learner, is more important than being able to write code on a white board on demand.

So any suggestions out there on tests, questions, or approaches?

Is it a good idea to put them in front of a computer and ask them to produce a form? Do you throw them curve balls? Is it fair to give them a very difficult (Impossible?) task just to see how they handle it?

Most of my interviews have been fairly non-technical, I've never been asked to write code at an interview so I'm curious what those who have done that, or asked someone to do it, thinks about it.

Random opinions and other thoughts appreciated, thanks.

Drill Sergeant: Holy God! Private Pyle! What is this in your table definition?

Private Pyle: Sir, it is a varchar(8000) field, Sir!

Drill Sergeant: And are you allowed to have varchar(8000) fields in your table definitions, Private Pyle?

Private Pyle: Sir, no Sir!

Drill Sergeant: Why is that Private Pyle?

Private Pyle: Sir, because my tables are too wide, Sir!

Drill Sergeant: Because your tables are disgusting fatbodies!

So Shadow Wrought came to town again, this time we were able to coordinate a meetup. We talked Monday afternoon and I suggested that I could pick him up and we could go somewhere for dinner. After I hung up I realized that with a 2 year old in tow, that sitting still for more than 5 minutes would probably be difficult. So instead we met up at the playground a a downtown park and could chat while Mercer was going wild.

We were talking about my job, his job and our respective families while strolling around the park, and discovered how hard it is to keep a thought when you've got a chatty 2 year old with you.

"That's interesting, boing boing boing, I bet it's a rewarding thing to, yes, that is a bird, be able to do things like, I see the water, that and actually make a, weeeooo-weeeooo, yeah, I hear the fire truck, difference. So has working, the air plane is up high, there changed, choo-choo, hear the train?, your views on, don't run off too far, it?"

Shadow is younger than I had pictured. Somehow I had a mental image of someone in their mid fourties, and I was off by about a decade. He's funny, smart, and I give him a 5 on the "People you should hang out with to solve the problems of the world over a few beers" scale.

AAAAAAAAAAA+++++++++++++++ WOULD MEET AGAIN

Uppsala, Sweden.
An eleven year old girl in Uppsala was taken from school by police and forced to undergo a gynecological exam.
But the suspicions that the girl had been mutilated turned out to be unfounded. Now the department of social services, county board of health services (Kinda*), and police have been reported.

The reason for the examination was that a nurse suspected that the girl had been taken away to undergo genital mutilation. The nurse reported her suspicions to social services who in turn reported it to police.

Ah how I miss ye olde country on days like these. Where children can be raped by the government without anyone losing their job or getting anything more than a stern talking to. If that.

The end result will be a half-assed excuse where the agencies involved blame the parents for acting suspcicios (Or, more likely, for being darkies), and how they had no choice but to act.

Sometimes, humanity sucks.

Happy Friday morning all.

When the baby is fussy I'm usually the one that will walk around with him and pat him on the butt until he falls asleep.

While Tammy gives up after 5-10 minutes because her arm is falling off, I have amazing stamina in my right arm, and can keep patting him for however long it takes.

Hi, just thought a journal update was in order.

New computer parts making their way back to me, working on the master bathroom, freaking out over money. Same ol' really.

I got a call from daycare around 11.45 this morning where a teacher told me that Mercer had formed a very nasty rash, blisters and all, on his butt. So I told my boss I had to leave and went to pick him up, he was on his mat on the floor screaming his little lungs out while a teacher was trying to comfort him.

We packed him up with a new (loose) diaper and went home and set up camp on the couch. With an open diaper under his butt and a towel under that to catch any accidents we were set for an afternoon on the couch. Some cookies for him, some ice cream for me and the school house rock dvd playing, it was pretty nice.

The diaper rash is slowly clearing up from an angry bright red to a rosy pink, and he's in a much better mood, even if he's walking bowlegged...

The boy's also opsessed with trains, so once the DVD came to the conjunction junction clip, that's where we've stayed since 3pm... Repeated over and over again...anything else would result in much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

But that's OK, being sick give a lot of leeway with activities.

So I ended up requesting an RMA from NewEgg on the MoBo, Cpu and RAM since I have no idea which one is the problem. I flashed the bios, bought a SATA dvd rom (Because IDE is apparently extremely slow on the DS3), read up on issues people have had and settings to try, and it's still slow as a dog.

Like, Windows installer fails because it is so slow. POST takes a few minutes and it takes another few to boot from CD.

I strongly suspect the motherboard is the culprit, but if it isn't, then I'd be past the 30 day return limit on the CPU by the time I found out. So I'll send it all back and see if the new stuff will run.

Well crap.

Yesterday I plugged it in and started it up and everything that should be spinning is, everything else is not. The case I got is less than satisfactory, it works, but the cables for the front panel end up being stretched a bit and I'm not thrilled with the wiring and ventilation layout. So I ordered a new case from NewEgg. It would've been slightly cheaper to order them together with the initial order, but ah well.

It does start and boot from CD, kinda. When trying to run the XP cd, it freezes while checking system configuration. I'm not sure what part to suspect in this, or if there's some configuration in bios I missed. But I should have the new case friday and will probably hold off on going in depth until then.

I'll probably try to burn a Knoppix or other CD based os and boot from it just to see if it does boot. If not, I'm tempted to suspect the memory causing it to lock up. Perhaps it doesn't play nice with the conroe after all. Any other suggestions?

Initial thoughts on the hardware and installation:
The DS3 mobo is easy to work with and well laid out. No complaints there.

The PSU, same thing. There's a LOT of wires coming out of it though, and unless you're computer is packed full of drives, you may have a hard time getting them all out of the way.

The CPU fan I'm less than impressed with. I really don't like how the blades are halfway exposed and the wire runs a chance of rubbing against them. I'll try to get it more out of the way in the new case, but still, it could be better.

The heatsink requires a decent amount of pressure to attach to the MoBo, and I can't say I'm 100% comfortable with the attachement mechanism. But ah well, that's how they're made these days I guess.

The CPU, video card, and RAM I'll speak more of when the system is up and running. No problem in installing any of them though.

At the petting-zoo last weekend:

Me: Hey look Mercer, cows!
Mercer: Mooo! Cow! Mooo!

Me: Hey look Mercer, goats!
Mercer: Baaaah! Goats! Baaaah!

Tammy: Hey look Mercer, chickens!
Mercer: Mmmmm! Yum yum chicken! *Smacks lips and makes slurping sounds*

Blah.

Those who have a decent memory may remember me talking about working on a house for the majority of last year. The in laws bought a house as an investment and were planning to fit up and resell it, aka, flip it.

This is kinda ranty against Tammy's parents, but well, it concerns me, and us, as well. So I'll vent here just as I have to her. She's not very happy either since I was away from home a lot during the project.

This weekend they got an offer for $81.000, countered with $85, and the buyer accepted.

All in all, they're in about $70.000, so $85.000 - 7% Agent fees - $70000 debt = $9050 (Before tax).

Blah.

$9000 wouldn't be a bad thing if it weren't for the fact that from purchase to closing will be nearly 18 months. I hate to think how many hundered hours I spent working on it with them/for them.

I'm not annoyed because I won't make big bucks, I never expected to. I worked to help them get started and would've done it for free (Which I may end up having done in the end).

My annoyance is that they could've done so much better, and could've made a much larger profit had they not continously made piss poor decisions against common sense and good advice.

As it is, the profit would probably be bigger had we just worked part time flipping burgers for 18 months.

You could say that the experience, and the tools, and the people that they've gotten to know would make it worth it since they can use this again for the next project.

Except...without me I doubt there'll be a next project. And the experience probably isn't worth much, since they absoloutely refuse to learn. I think out of sheer principle they continue to make the same poor decisions over and over again.

The tools they bought are generally not good enough to stand up for "pro" use. See previous paragraph, they'll buy tools at the dollar store first, harbor freight second, and finally buy it again at Lowes after the first two sets broke (Not kidding). Over and over and over again.

And thirdly, most of the people they've gotten to know aren't people I'd want to see around again.

You get what you pay for.

So when you pay some guy that some other guy knows $10 an hour to play carpenter, well, you get a guy who plays carpenter and may or may not show up.

Blah.