Tag: computer store

My Old Sierra Games

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games2 Comments

Does anyone remember Sierra Online Entertainment?  I certainly do.  How could I ever forget?  They were the very first computer based video games I had ever played, and that was in the 80’s and 90’s.

I played King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella on my old Apple //e that I bought from my brother-in-law in 1989 for $750.  It didn’t have a tower with a motherboard or a hard drive, because it got destroyed before I bought it.  Long story, it was my friends fault lol.  Anyway, I remember that this was the very first game I bought and I had so much fun with it.  I sold the computer a few years later.

In 1997 when I bought my very first Windows-based computer, I wondered if they still sold it, so I looked and found the King’s Quest Collection at a computer store for $20 and I bought it.  I also bought many other Sierra game collections and loved them all.

I have been very hard at work rebuilding my old website to make it new and fresh, and while looking in my CD book for a CD with a backup file, I came across all of my old Sierra games and it occurred to me that maybe I should make a page that showed all of them and mention how much fun I had playing them, so I did.

Shiver’s 2 is one of the games that I couldn’t remember playing.  I have the 2 cd’s, but I just don’t have any memory of playing it.  I tried to install it, but it wouldn’t let me.  Every attempt at installing it resulted in a crash.  I didn’t give up though, I did a Google search looking for Sierra installers and I actually found a website.

New Installers for Sierra Games.  I installed the King’s Quest collection using their installer and it worked.  Although some of the games crashed, not all of them did.  I ran the 4th and 5th game, but the 7th one crashed.  I even had it install Mixed Up Mother Goose and I tried playing it, but it wouldn’t do it.  I think the reason is because it needs to be in 256 colors.  I can only do 16 and 32 bit.  I do remember when I played some of those games in the 90’s that I had to physically change my resolution to 256 colors before I could run the game.  I don’t think I will play them so I uninstalled it.

They had the Shiver’s 2 installer and I was successful in installing it, but here is my issue, when I run the game, it’s mostly video footage and it freezes up on me.  I can hear the sound perfectly, but the video freezes up too much.  It’s basically unplayable with my computer.

There are a few games that I never got to play, like the Police Quest Collection and the Quest for Glory Collection, so I may end up trying to install those and see what happens.  If they play then they play, if they don’t then they don’t.

I did have to install 2 programs for this.  DOSBox and ScummVM.  I’ve heard of DOSBox, but not the ScummVM one.  There is one annoying thing though.  I have avast anti-virus, and every time I tried running one of the games, avast would pop up on my screen saying it had never heard of Sierra, so it was checking it to see if it was a virus.  So I would suggest if you do have these Sierra games and intend to play them and you have avast, you could either wait for it to allow you to run it, or just close avast down.  I mean, you won’t need the internet with these games, usually, so you don’t have to worry about getting a virus.  If it only hassled me once then I’d say let it add that particular game to its list of approved programs, but if it does it every time then it’s annoying, shut it down.

I will try to play those other games and if/when I do, I will update my Sierra page on my website.

My Computer Still Doesn’t Work!

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer1 Comment

I am so beyond frustrated at this point.  It all started when…

*Enter the dream sequence*

In the middle of July, my video card stopped working so I had to wait until I got my August check to buy another one.  I bought the wrong one but since I had to wait a week for it to arrive from Tiger Direct, I decided I would just deal with it.  I didn’t want to have to wait another week for them to receive it so they would send me another one yet another week later.

It did work, sort of.  I couldn’t turn off my computer then the PG&E turned it off for me much to my dismay and it wouldn’t turn back on.

I read in the message boards that it won’t turn back on because I needed a new power supply so I had to wait until I got the money which was the beginning of October.  I bought that from NewEgg and still nothing.

I read in another message board that I needed a new motherboard so I waited for 2 weeks when finally I was loaned the money for a new motherboard which I also bought from NewEgg.

*Exit the dream sequence*

Fast forward to today and my new motherboard arrives and it turns on Hallelujah!

It won’t freaking read my hard drive.  NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

If I had just taken the god damn tower to the god damn computer store to begin with, I would have had it fixed by now instead of having to replace all of my god damn computer components.

I was so sick to my stomach today that I couldn’t eat.  Darrin made some chicken and I was so upset that the smell of it was making me dry heave.

Ok.  So this is what I’m going to do.  I’m going to call New Egg tomorrow and tell them what my problem is.  On one hand, I don’t want to have to return the motherboard, but on the other hand I don’t want to have to buy another hard drive either.

I will let them tell me if everything else is compatible.  If it is and it’s just the hard drive that isn’t compatible but I can still use it as an external drive then I will buy a new hard drive that is compatible in November.

I just wish I could have my computer working now, you know what I mean?  I’m so sick of waiting because I haven’t been able to use it in 2 months.  I can only take so much of having to use an internet only netbook with a tiny screen for so long.  It’s killing my eyes!

So, the sun’ll come out… tomorrow.  Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow… I’ll call NewEgg…

You know what the difference between Tiger Direct and New Egg is right?  A FREAKING WEEK!  It takes a week to get anything from Tiger Direct but when I buy something before 4pm from New Egg, I get it the next day.  That’s so much better than anticipating for a whole week because at least if I have to return something, it won’t take more than a day to get to them because they are only 2 1/2 hours away from me.

So until tomorrow…

Oh, here is my new configuration if anyone out there wants to tell me what is compatible with what BEFORE I have to call NewEgg.

My new motherboard was the only thing they had that was compatible with my CPU, memory and video card.  I didn’t even think to check to see if it was compatible with my hard drive brand or DVD burner.  Although it reads the DVD drive since it was able to attempt to reinstall windows for me.

  • Motherboard is ASRock A785GM-LE
  • CPU is AMD Sempron 3400+ Socket AM2 1.80Ghz
  • Memory is Kingston 1GB PC2-4200 CL4 240-Pin DIMM…  that’s what it says on the case, I know it’s a DDR2.
  • The video card that started this shit is Radeon HD 4650
  • Hard drive is Maxtor 320GB EIDE HD 7200/16mb/ATA-100
  • DVD Burner is LiteON… I know it’s a Sata drive
  • Windows XP Home which is installed but the hard drive won’t boot.

By the way, I read today on another message board after futzing with it for 2 hours that I needed a fresh windows installation.  It said that it won’t read the hard drive unless I install a fresh installation of windows but I wasn’t willing to wipe my hard drive.

I did try to install windows over itself and it copied all of the installation files to the hard drive but when it rebooted to begin the installation, it wouldn’t read the hard drive so it would go back to trying to install windows from the cd again to either reformat or install windows the way I had already tried.  It just will not boot from the hard drive.

Oh and I tried to go into safe mode but I guess since it won’t read the hard drive windows installation there is no way it’s gonna go into safe mode.

I hope this is enough information and I hope to GOD that someone reads this and tells me what the hell to do.

Thanks for listening.

Update: I think I might have pinned down my issue.  My hard drive is an ATA-100 and I am looking in the manual for the new motherboard and it says that ATA-133 is compatible.  So… that means I need a new hard drive to work with the motherboard.  NewEgg has a 160GB ATA-133 hard drive for $25.  So… I will just buy that and put my other hard drive in a USB case to use as an external hard drive for storage.

Sliders Seasons 1-3 on Hulu

On By Michel McDonaldIn TV1 Comment

I never saw the show Sliders when it was on TV in the mid to late 90’s and I regret that.  This is the type of show that I would watch too.  Thankfully Hulu has it to watch from the very beginning, but only the first 3 seasons.

This show was in my Hulu queue and I was rushed to watch all 3 seasons because they were supposed to expire at midnight on August 31st but for some reason it’s still there so if you haven’t seen it, there is still a chance.

I looked for a description of the show but this is all I could find:

“A boy-genius and his comrades travel to different parallel universes, trying to find their way back home.”

That tells the premise of the show but is hardly a description.  I will elaborate.

Quinn Mallory invents sliding and he brings his college professor Maximilian Arturo and his co-worker at the computer store Wade Welles.  He makes the vortex so huge to make sure that all 3 of them can go through but what he doesn’t realize is that he made it too big because it ends up going out of the house and into the street and captures a car with Rembrandt “Crying Man” Brown in the vortex.

Before they leave, Quinn meets his doppelgänger from another dimension who solves the formula for sliding and before he could tell him something important, his vortex sucks him out back to his own world.  That thing he was supposed to tell him was that he should not try to open a vortex before the time is up, otherwise you won’t get back home to your own dimension, you’ll be lost forever.

In that first episode they slide to an dimension where the planet is frozen.  They have to get out of there in a hurry otherwise they will die but that means opening a portal before the time is up which puts them in a different dimension.  They are lost.

They travel to dimension after dimension trying to get back home but end up getting caught up in the drama of the world they slide to.  Every dimension they slide to is the same exact year but the world is never the exact same.  The country might have been taken over by the Germans or the Russians, or in some cases the dinosaurs never went extinct.  There was one episode where California was Texas and even though it was the same year where they still had big buildings and technology, it was the wild west.

In the middle of the 3rd season, Professor Arturo dies and is replaced with a female character.  I understand that Wade leaves the show and is replaced with Quinn’s brother in the 4th season.  I know that they are brothers in real life but they are also brothers in the show.  I’m not exactly sure because I haven’t seen it yet but I’m pretty sure it’s the brother he never had.  Literally, the brother his mother never had but his mother in another dimension.

I also found out that by the end of the 4th season his brother is gone and in the 5th season Jerry O’Connell was replaced by another actor and his brother is replaced by another slider who is a female.  The only person left in the show who was there from the very beginning is Rembrandt.

So I have had a lot of fun watching this show on Hulu.  I had my computer hooked up to the hdtv with an HDMI cable and was watching it with Hulu Desktop.  There are commercials, usually about 5 times in 1 hour and they play 2 commercials so you are interrupted for 1 minute but that is way less time than if you were watching it on tv.  I don’t mind the ads because some of them advertise shows that you can watch on Hulu and they give you a button to click to bookmark the show for later.

I guess Hulu isn’t going to put the 4th and 5th seasons in their website but I found out that Netflix does have them so at some point I’m going to start the Netflix trial so I can watch the final 2 seasons.  I’m looking forward to seeing him and his brother together but without Wade and the professor, it’s kind of depressing to continue to watch it.  And without Jerry O’Connell in the final season I’m not even sure if I want to see it but I still want to see how it is.

I like this show.  I don’t know the reason I never watched this show but when I finally was able to watch it, I didn’t because I hadn’t seen it from the beginning and I don’t like to pick up a show in the middle because I’ll always be lost when they talk about a story line or character they used to know who I never got to see.  So that’s why I never watched it later.  But I’m watching it now so better late than never.

My New Video Card Arrived

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer2 Comments

Last month the video card in my computer went bad.  I started getting the blue screen of death (BSOD) saying the issue was video hardware.  I had no money to buy a new video card so I had to wait until August when I got some money to buy a new one.

I finally got the money and bought a new video card and HDMI cable (pictured above).  It has taken 7 days from the day that I bought it until the day it arrived.  It was supposed to come this Friday but luckily it came today.

I immediately install the darn thing and plug everything back in and turn it on.  Nothing.  I don’t understand why it’s not turning on so my instinct is that I must have installed it improperly so I unplugged everything, opened it up and looked to see that it was properly seated into the motherboard, which it was.  I plugged everything back in, turn it on and still nothing.

I stood there with my hands on my head thinking “oh crap, this card is incompatible with my motherboard and I have to return it.  I’m going to have to bring it to the computer store and pay $60 to have them diagnose the problem and buy another video card.  But I don’t have any more money to do that, what am I going to do?”  Then suddenly it turned on.  At this point I’m very happy but confused at the same time.  I don’t understand what happened, why it won’t turn on.

Since I bought an HDMI cable for it, which by the way wasn’t long enough.  I mean it’s just long enough but it is more visible behind the tv than I thought it would be.  I thought it would be long enough that it would be laying down on the floor but it’s not.  But I had it plugged in and cloned on the tv.  I loaded Lord of the Rings Online and the resolution on my desktop shrunk down for some odd reason.  I didn’t turn the tv to HDMI 1 to find out what it looked like there but that doesn’t matter as much as it matters how it is on my monitor.

I shut the computer down because I really didn’t have anything else to do on it for the night and I figured since it is starting up normal now it’d be ok.  I rebooted a couple of times and it started up right away.  No problem.

Problem!  I went to the store and came back with a receipt which has to be entered into the Microsoft Money program.  I turned the computer back on and it won’t turn on.  It wasn’t like before where it was only a minute or 2.  It was 5 minutes before it even turned on.  Again, I’m thinking “CRAP!  What am I going to do now?”.  Then it turned on…

So I’m not sure what I have to do now.  Should I leave it on 24/7 with the occasional reboots to refresh everything?  Should I try sleep mode then in 20 minutes try to turn it back on to see if it works?  Should I throw the tower out the window?  At this point I have no more money to spend and I have already cut the proof of purchase off the box because I have to send that in to receive my $15 rebate gift card.  So, I can’t return it at all.  I screwed that up for myself.  All I can do is just deal with it I guess.

Just when you think it’s all good it turns out to be crap.  I guess I have to live with a slow booting computer.  It really sucks that I couldn’t just afford to buy a brand new computer instead.  Oh well, not much I can do about it now, I have to live with it.

New DVD Burner

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, TechLeave a comment

Well I finally did it. I finally bought a new DVD burner. I don’t know what happened to mine but it won’t even read discs let alone burn them anymore.

The DVD burner that I have is a Lite-on lightscribe DVD burner that I bought in January 2007. After only a couple of years it decided that it wasn’t going to open easily anymore. When you press the button it makes these clicking sounds but doesn’t open. You had to keep pressing the button until it would open.

Eventually it got so bad that you’d have to put a paperclip into the little hole that allows you to force the door to open. Now, that doesn’t even open it anymore.

I don’t care about burning music or whatever, I just want to back up my files so that I can reformat my hard drive. My computer is so slow because of all the crap that I download. I’ve deleted more than half of what I’ve downloaded only because I knew I wouldn’t be able to back it up but that doesn’t help me if I can’t burn the rest of the stuff onto discs.

My DVD burner that is in there now was $50 at TigerDirect.com back in 2007 and I checked the computer store in town and they sell the same one for $46 and I went to TigerDirect.com again and they sell the same one for $19.99 now. I thought, I’d much rather spend $25 (with shipping) and wait until the end of the week for it rather than spend double and get it today.

So hopefully by the weekend my computer won’t be so slow. I can finally burn the crap I’ve been downloading as well as all of my documents and images and start fresh with a new Windows installation.

About friggin time!

Never Help Unappreciative Friends

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, Friends and Family, TechLeave a comment

I have a friend who used to live next door to us.  She was, as we gay’s called them, my “fag hag“.  That is until she moved away and then I didn’t see her again for many years.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere she calls me a couple of weeks ago begging me for my help.  She broke her sisters computer and knowing that I used to build computers for a (semi) living, she begged me to come over to her sister’s house to help her.

I didn’t want to because I’m a hermit.  I don’t leave the house unless it’s to go to the store, doctors appointments or to take the dog out.  I have a huge case of Body dysmorphic disorder so I just don’t like being around people out of fear they are constantly judging me.  Not just my face, skin and hair but also because I have facial ticks.

But what could I do?  She was talking so loud and so fast on the phone, I could barely understand what she was saying so to get her to stop begging and to shut up I said ok, come get me.

Her sister pulls up to our front door in a few minutes and she brings me to her house.  She drops me off and I go upstairs, look at the computer but I can’t do anything about it, the hard drive has crashed.  I was there for a couple of hours switching hard drives since they had 3 of them but none of them worked.  They all started to load a different version of Windows but always went to blue screen which was a clear indication that the hard drive had crashed.

Her sister finally takes me home and I think that’s the end of it.

About a week ago the sister calls me to tell me she’s at the computer store I told her to go to and asks me what kind of hard drive to buy.  Naturally I told her she needs to have her crashed hard drive with her so she gets the right one.  It has to have the same configuration as her old one otherwise a new hard drive (that fits todays standards) may not work in her (I don’t know how old) motherboard.

That happened to me once, I bought a brand new 320gb hard drive in 2007 for the computer I built in 2002 and it wouldn’t work.  I ended up having to buy all new parts to build a new computer around that hard drive.

So she gets the hard drive and calls me asking if I’ll install it for her.  I begrudgingly said I’d do it.  My former BFF called to tell me that she has the mouse at work so I’ll have to bring my own.  Well, that doesn’t work because mine is wireless, it won’t work with the Windows installation.

Anyway, long story short (too late?) I’m there for 6 hours, we cleared the CMOS because it had a password that nobody knew and I had to access it to get the job done.  I install Windows and helped get her started with the windows updates.

The sister takes me home and she offers to pay me but, what do you say when someone offers to pay you money?  I’m sure most people would be like oh sure that’ll be $60 (@$10/hr) please.  I’m too embarrassed by money.  We were broke and starving and we could’ve used the money, even $10 to get us some food but I said no thanks.  She offered to buy me a pumpkin for Halloween or a Turkey for Thanksgiving.  I’m not gonna go grocery shopping with her lol.  Just take me home lol.

The next morning at 7am, the sister calls me accusing me of stealing her neighbors mouse.  Excuse me?  Are you kidding me?  She knew I had a wireless mouse and she saw me grab MY mouse.  I even watched her hand her neighbors mouse to her.  I get paid $0 for 6 hours of work and I get accused of stealing.  Uncool!

Well, it has been over a week and my so-called “fag hag” has not once called or emailed me via Facebook to thank me for getting her sisters computer working.  If anything, she owes me the money because she is the one who messed up her sisters computer in the first place.  But not even a simple “thank you” from her.

I will NEVER help another person who is not a permanent fixture in my life who I know is ungrateful and will not even thank me.  I believe in Karma and I know that my karma is in very good standing.

Update 2011-01-23:  She called me a few weeks later acting as if nothing happened and I told her I was pissed off.  I told her what her sister did and she said she knew and she thought I was pissed off at her sister but I said no, I’m pissed off at you.  She asked why and I told her because this is the first I’m hearing from her and I still haven’t heard a thank you for helping your sister out.

Then I told her that I removed her as Facebook friends but not because of this but because I am better friends with her ex who demanded that I remove her from my Facebook friends.  She understood why I removed her and we haven’t spoken since.