Journal Bill Dawg's Journal: goodbye Vista and Firefucks 27
I last got a new PC in 2009, with Vista on it. About mid-point last year MS stopped testing their updates before sending them out, so after a couple of months of having to roll them back, I stopped applying them. Consequently I also started using Firefox as my primary browser, even though the piece of shit would lock up my entire system for 30 seconds at a time. I didn't want to continue using IE without it being up-to-date. And I realize I was risking things by not having the OS up-to-date. But I'm not booting to that drive anymore.
Anyways, so I unplug everything to dust it all off and clean off my desk, and when I put it all back on my desk, the monitor is dead. So I order a new monitor. It doesn't work with the DisplayPort cable I'd been using. So I go get a DVI-to-HDMI cable. Sheesh.
Put in a new hard drive, set some BIOS settings to things Dell probably should've in the first place, from the boot menu tell it to boot from CD, and nothing. Without really thinking, I reboot and this time don't bring up the boot menu, and it boots to CD. WTF.
So I install Windows 8.1, Office, Visio, Project, SQL Server, and Visual Studio (from discs made from ISO's downloaded when I had a MSDN subscription at my last job).
There are no games, so I figure out how to set up a Client Hyper-V VM, and install Vista into it. Luckily(/intentionally) I had bought cutting edge enough, and with 6 GB RAM at the time, to support this. But I find out Vista's games all use video hardware acceleration, and the VM has a software emulator. So the card games except Texas Hold'Em (I've Vista Ultimate) are all tiny. Chess Titans is 2D only, and the mouse movement and click recognition is excruciatingly slow. But I put up with it.
I wrote down all my network settings, usernames and passwords, printed my hosts file, etc., and painstakingly set up the new Windows with my settings. Took a while to set all the stuff in IE's Tracking Protection list. Installed EMET, and set it to max security (vs. stability/compatibility). Did all the Windows Updates after installing each application/application suite.
God I fucking hate doing this kind of work. That's why I'm a programmer and not an eye-tee person for a living. And it's why I'm never, ever going to do this again. I'm 50 fucking years old this year, my next OS upgrade will definitely need new hardware anyway, so I'm vowing to never again install another system in my life.
I'm surprised I didn't fucking short out the mobo putting the hard drive in.
To all you people who can actually stand to do this as part of your job, bless you, you're made of different stuff than I.
p.s. This system has no Java and no Flash (and no Firefox!).
I feel your pain (Score:2)
Computer equipment can be a real PITA.
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It seems things are changing faster too; seems like when I first started working with PC's in the 90's, I went through several upgrades and cables and things stayed the same. Just in video connectors alone these days there's VGA, a bunch of different DVI types, HDMI, several (incompatible, I found out) versions of DisplayPort, composite video, component video, ... I half expected the new drive (IIRC SATA 3) not to work with my system's (probably SATA 1) cabling.
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I remember back when I bought that HUUUUUGE 40 mb drive for my 386, and it didn't work because the BIOS couldn't recognize anything above 30 mb.
But yeah, they're changing a whole lot faster now.
We all reach that point ... (Score:2)
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As you get older, your time gets more valuable, and your patience with stupidity disappears.
Ahhh nice! Somebody understands me! (C'mon BD/CS, make your zinger a good one!)
This is why I run a live system now, which also comes with Netscape, still the one true multi-talented browser (and now hardly any bigger than the bloated one trick pony Firefox). All those problems magically go away. And it works well as a rescue/forensic disk* when your windows machine takes a crap. If the machine doesn't boot from a liv
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which also comes with Netscape
You think nothing's changed in the world since the Lincoln administration so no wonder you use a browser from that era. Wikipedia sayeth development ceased on it in 2008. That's older than my (relatively) ancient PC. I wonder if it could render today's web pages at all.
In a similar vein to a live CD, I've thought about trying to restrict all of my Internet-facing application usage to a VM, but it just seems too inconvenient.
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*sigh* [seamonkey-project.org] Please, tell me you're faking it...
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Why would I know, or care, about any AssMonkey project or whatever?
You're like a nerd in jr. high who considers the rest of school dorks for not knowing about D&D characters or something. The dork is you (people).
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See? You can't respond any other way. No biggie, I understand. You're just symptomatic with Trump on the brain, and you're pretending to be him... You gotta get a few bankruptcies under your belt and steal from your employees first to convince me.
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When you guys use some ultra-obscure software, and then suggest that somehow I'm the weirdo for not having heard of it, then yes, I can't respond any other way.
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The obscurity is in your mind. That program is hardly obscure. It is one of the most stable that has ever existed, and is far superior to anything that has come out since. It seems very typical of you not to seek out the best. Once again you only see and acknowledge what's being pushed, which clearly explains and confirms the many things about you that I have previously pointed out. And once again you turn a perfectly civil discussion into one of your little troll fests. Are you always this confrontational
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That program is hardly obscure. It is one of the most stable that has ever existed, and is far superior to anything that has come out since
"Obscure" doesn't mean unstable or inferior. There you go redefining words again.
It seems very typical of you not to seek out the best.
Wow, I would've never guessed that you know me anywhere near well enough for such things to even be knowable by you.
Might be why you don't have the job you like.
I don't have job, period; why do you think I'm wasting time talking to you? Because, for now (hopefully), I actually don't have anything better to do.
And I don't whine about Leftism at work; the corporate world has become so stricken with the PC disease these days, it's too dangerous.
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I don't have job, period;
Yes, exactly my point...
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No one can tell what your points are. I just know it's always accompanied by belittlement; why do you think I foe'd you on my other account? I'm only unfaltering you with this account because over the last several years I've come to realize that most people are like that, and I need to get used to it.
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There is a reason you don't have a job. Save your breath, and look in the mirror, boy.
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Entirely sincere kudos on that lifestyle change. Libs can't kill you, they can only make you stronger!
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There is a reason you don't have a job.
Heh, as if:
1) The reasons are singular,
2) That simple, and
3) You would/could know.
p.s. I don't think I typed "unfaltering", when I meant "unfaltering". Oh shit! Fucking IE 11 auto-"corrects" the word "unfiltering" to "unfaltering"! Sonofabitch! I turned all that shit off on the iPhone, fucking replacing words in my texts. Now I have to do it here too.
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Sorry:
By the way, my newest PC is also around 8 years old now... Time is flying!
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We use USB sticks now.
Do they still come with malware built-in?
VM's are not a bad idea, but the host is still vulnerable.
Seems like little or none if I don't set up communications between guest and host.
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Do they still come with malware built-in?
Not when you use dd... You do know that much, right? Or do you need a link?
Seems like little or none if I don't set up communications between guest and host.
Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn't [theregister.co.uk]
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Microsoft Windows [Version 6.3.9600]
(c) 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\>dd
'dd' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
C:\>cscript dd
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.8
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Input Error: There is no file extension in "C:\dd".
C:\>powershell dd
dd : The term 'dd' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script
file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name,
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You so disappoint me. I feel like I on AOL, not Slashdot...
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We're not all Linux fags here. Just like we're not all commies. (Just virtually all of us.)
Go. To. Bed.
[Aw, faggy Slashdot put me in a 5 minute posting timeout. Must be the merely "Neutral" karma this account has. (And Slashdot being run by fags.)]
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:-) You are becoming my favorite troll. I don't suppose you got the hair and you're probably a bit more pudgy around the middle. You're no TILF
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So it's the tired old "you're a troll!", followed by personal attacks on my appearance. The latter just being filler, to round out what you've typed to a satisfying amount to you. (I.e. you could've said anything.)
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Neutral karma, and Slashdot, suck ass.
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Some people think that's fun? Even the crappiest of programmers who slop out their code with a bunch of bugs, that they then have to fix, very unlikely find that part fun.
So Linux is only for the young? :P
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