I just put an ad on craigslist for these, but I thought I'd share them here as well. Maybe you know a relative or two who could benefit from a simple and fully functioning PC. Well, here's a chance to do that and provide me with some spare cash as well.
All systems come with keyboard, mouse, and power cable
All drivers and Windows Updates have been installed
All parts have been tested and are in working condition
Memory and hard drive have been thoroughly tested and have no errors
All systems are cable and DSL ready
Systems 5 and 6 can be used for 56k dial-up connections
Perfect for web browsing, checking e-mail, using Word/Excel, light gaming, etc.
Not recommended for serious gaming or heavy multimedia editing (obviously)
Includes the following preinstalled software:
Office XP (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
AVG Antivirus Free Edition
Mozilla Firefox
VLC Media Player
WinZip
Adobe Reader
Java Runtime
Adobe Flash
Below are the detailed specs for each system. You can click any of the images to see the high-res version.
System #1 - $75 - AMD Athlon 950MHz Processor, 192MB Memory, 20GB Hard Drive, CD-ROM Drive, Floppy Drive, Sound Card, Video Card, Network Card, 2x USB Ports (Back), PS/2 Keyboard, Labtec USB Optical Mouse, Power Cable, Windows 2000 Professional
System #2 - $75 - AMD Duron 950MHz Processor, 192MB Memory, 20GB Hard Drive, CD-ROM Drive, Floppy Drive, Sound Card, Video Card, Network Card, 2x USB Ports (Back), 2x USB Ports (Front), PS/2 Keyboard, GE PS/2 Optical Mouse, Power Cable, Windows 2000 Professional
System #3 - $65 - AMD Duron 950MHz Processor, 192MB Memory, 10GB Hard Drive, CD-ROM Drive, Floppy Drive, Sound Card, Video Card, Network Card, 2x USB Ports (Back), PS/2 Keyboard, Labtec USB Optical Mouse, Power Cable, Windows 2000 Professional
System #4 - $90 - AMD Athlon 1.05GHz Processor, 192MB Memory, 40GB Hard Drive, CD-ROM Drive, 8x CD-RW Drive, Floppy Drive, Sound Card, Video Card, Network Card, 2x USB Ports (Back), PS/2 Keyboard, Microsoft USB Optical Mouse, Power Cable, Windows 2000 Professional
System #5 - $40 - Cyrix 225MHz Processor, 64MB Memory, 4GB Hard Drive, CD-ROM Drive, Floppy Drive, Sound Card, Video Card, Network Card, 56k Modem, 2x USB Ports (Back), PS/2 Keyboard, Logitech Serial Ball Mouse, Power Cable, Windows 98 Second Edition
System #6 - $40 - Intel Pentium 200MHz Processor, 64MB Memory, 4GB Hard Drive, CD-ROM Drive, Floppy Drive, Sound Card, Video Card, Network Card, 56k Modem, 2x USB Ports (Back), PS/2 Keyboard, Microsoft PS/2 Ball Mouse, Power Cable, Windows 98 Second Edition
I also have two 15” VGA monitors for sale at $10/piece. They are tested working and can do at least 800x600 resolution. Power cable included with purchase.
Some other notes:
I will deliver any of these within Toledo area for no extra cost.
I will add a 56k modem to any system whose specs do not currently include one for an additional $15.
If you have any questions or are interested in purchasing one of these, e-mail me. You'll be helping me clear some room, and I'll be eternally thankful to you for it.
EDIT (8/12): Appended paragraphs lost by input error. My apologies.
I got a lot of small projects done this past weekend.
DVDFlick is a great free/open source software program for Windows that offers flexible and simple DVD authoring. I've been using this to complete two projects of mine that have been on the backburner for far too long; one being a VHS to DVD conversion of an old family video, and the other being a collection of avant garde short films for my landlord. So far, I've found it to be an awesome program - I highly recommend it to anyone seeking a simple interface for putting digital movies (FLVs included!) onto DVD. Thanks to Dan for the tip.
I was also reminded recently of another screen saver that should have been mentioned in my Screen Savers post a while back - the BSOD Screen Saver. You have to give Microsoft some credit for willing to have a sense of humor about it. I remember I had this installed on the tech bench workstation at Computer Renaissance, and it was priceless watching customer's faces when they saw it kick in. Nothing boosts your confidence quite like watching a technician's PC 'crash'.
I'm told by the good folks at uCertify that anyone interesting in their products will receive a 10% discount if they use the coupon code NESTOR. You may recall that I recently reviewed their certification testing software here not too long ago. Don't say I never did anything for you.
As some of you know, I like to collect exotic computers. Ever since I heard about them, I've thought a BeBox would be the crown jewel of such a collection. Only 1800 of these were ever made, and there is even an online registry where you can see a list of owners. Well, I happened upon an eBay auction for one recently. If only I had $1000 to throw at thing like this...
Want to know something ridiculous? Despite hating the infernal devices, I am currently in possession of three different cell phones (and three different phone numbers). You see, I recently purchased a new cell phone, as my contract for the old one is up shortly and I figured it'd be a good time to get a new contract (and new number). However, I was under the impression that my contract was up at the end of this month, when its actually up in October. So until then, i'll be carting around both the new phone, my old one, and my work phone. What kind of nerd cred do I get for this?
Around the time I got my new laptop, I decided to see if I could find a way to synchronize bookmarks across different computers. I very quickly found the Firefox add-on 'FoxMarks', which I've fallen in love with since. Really about 90% of anything I do on a computer is read web pages. For a long while, I fell out of the practice of bookmarking webpages because I'd always be at a different computer (work PC, laptop, one of many home PCs, etc) and I didn't want to deal with remembering which computer I bookmarked what page on. FoxMarks has fixed that problem, and now I wonder how I lived without it. It's a testament to Firefox that extremely useful add-ons like this exist, while no such plug-in capability exists for IE yet (or at least one as cool).
Part of the nice thing about discovering FoxMarks was that I needed to sit down and collect all the bookmarks I had collection through the years across all my computers, and this turned out to be a good opportunity to sift through and find the dead links and then either update them or get rid of them. I also took advantage of this opportunity to reorganize my bookmarks entirely, and now I think I have a much more intuitive folder structure than I've ever had before.
In a similar vein, I decided to see about synchronizing my e-mail. For years, I've used the Thunderbird/GMail/POP3 combination to manage my e-mail, and this worked great. But now that I'm regularly using at least three different computers at any given time (my laptop, my home PC, my work PC), I needed to find a way to better synchronize what I was doing. I decided the easiest and best course of action would be to use IMAP instead of POP3. With POP3, everything just gets downloaded to your PC and however you organize it from that point is up to you - the server doesn't keep any record and continues to just lump all e-mail into one big pile. But with IMAP, all the subfolders you create are actually recorded on the server, and so you see this structure regardless of which computer you connect from or which mail client you connect with.
So over this past weekend I went through the migration process of uploading all my archived e-mails to the GMail server, dealing with connection headaches, reorganizing my subfolder structure (it needed to be done anyway), and deleting a lot of the unnecessary e-mails that had amassed. I'm still working on those last two things, but I'm happy to say that I'm now successfully running GMail with IMAP through Thunderbird, and I couldn't be happier with the results - all my computers see the exact same folder structure whenever I connect with Thunderbird.
A lot of these little projects, like using FoxMarks and IMAP, have been brought about by two changes in my lifestyle: that I'm moving away from my old home PC and that I've got a decent laptop to use now. I bought a 'gaming' PC like a year ago and had it hooked up in my bedroom, but I still never turned it on much except to game; most of my home computing was handled on an old Pentium 4 system that i'd had for years that was hooked up in my dining room. Though the computer in my room was more physically convenient to get to, the old one in my dining room had all the good stuff on it; it had all my e-mails, all my files, all my bookmarks. So I just kept using it, even though it's got an energy-wasting 22-inch CRT monitor that is excessively bright, takes 20 minutes to turn on when its cold, and seems to just generally be in the process of dying.
And though I had a laptop that I carried with me, it was really just for business use. It was kind of bulky, was a pain to type on (you had to press extra hard on the keys), and had a battery life of about 15 minutes. Now that I have a new laptop that doesn't have any of those problems, I'm actually using it laptop for everyday stuff...and that means web browsing, e-mail, and the like. Clearly, I would need to find a less-centralized way of storing my data so that I can get to it from wherever I need to. I needed to wrest control of my data from that aging dining room PC.
So now I've got my bookmarks ready for portable computing, thanks to FoxMarks...I've got my e-mail ready for portable computing, thanks to IMAP...what else is left? Ah, that's right - I need to find a new file server. So here's what I'm looking for:
At least 400GB usable storage, preferably ~1TB or so - does not need to be included, I can get the drives
Redundancy in the form of RAID1 or RAID5 - preferably RAID5, and preferably hardware, though software is acceptable
Gigabit connectivity - my home LAN is all gigabit and it would be ridiculous not to take advantage of that for a file server
Low-impact management OS - preferably just a firmware system, as I intend to keep this on 24/7 and would like to save energy
So does anyone have any suggestions on a NAS device that meets these criteria (or close to them?)
BTW, if anyone is interested in watching an hour-long training video on how to sell OS/2 Version 2, check out my YouTube channel. I finally got around to dicing this thing up and uploading it. The script and acting are humorous on their own, but I think the video will actually provide some insight on OS/2 for those who have never seen it or heard of it.
I had the pleasure of attending The Last HOPE (Hackers On Planet Earth) last weekend in NYC. For those of you not in the know, Hackers On Planet Earth is a hacker convention that takes place about every two years at the infamous Hotel Pennsylvania in Manhattan. It's run by 2600, perhaps the most well-known and longest-running hacker mag in the US. This was my second HOPE, having attended HOPE 6 two years ago, and I had an even better experience this time around than I did before.
Like many hacker cons, HOPE is an event that offers a multitude of fascinating things to pass the time with. The con itself runs for three days (Friday through Sunday) roughly 10AM to midnight and manifests itself most apparently in the presentations given every hour on the hour across four different rooms (there were only three in 2006). These presentations span a vast array of hacker topics, and aren't limited to the technical, as one might suppose. There were many talks that dealt with economics, society, psychology, politics, entertainment, journalism, and even sex - all from the 'hacker' perspective.
But the presentations aren't the only thing that happen. Far from it. The second floor of the hotel has sections for vendors (which included AdaFruit, Make Magazine, the EFF, No Starch Press, ToooL,Club Mate, and others), a lockpicking village (where you can buy lockpicking goods, practice on a variety of locks, and get first-hand instructions from any number of hobbyists standing about), a line for Segway rides, booths representing different hackerspaces, and so much more. I also liked that this year they decided to put up a number of different art installations and liven the decor up a tad (pictures below).
And even beyond these 'official' ways to pass the time, the social environment is what really brings the whole thing together. Had I not obligations to return to the place I was staying at at a reasonable hour, I might have stuck around for some of the parties and bar outings that took place after midnight. I managed to strike up a number of conversations by asking people to 'sign my yearbook', which was really a copy of the newly released Best of 2600. I mostly asked presenters whose talks I enjoyed the most, but I also got a few random signatures just to see what people would write.
The following is a brief list of some of the autographs I got:
Emmanuel Goldstein, founder and chief editor of 2600
RenderMan, who gave a great talk on hacking people using a variety of wireless technologies
Myrcurial, who delivered an entertaining and insightful speech on working as an executive in a corporation without compromising your hacker lifestyle
Barry Wels, founder of TOOOL (The Open Organization Of Lockpickers)
Jacob Appelbaum, big man in the Tor project as well as fellow Coil fan
The Cheshire Catalyst, last editor of Abbie Hoffman's TAP Newsletter, owner of his own area code (321), and longtime 2600 associate
Karsten Nohl, PhD student at the University of Virginia. Participated in a panel on the recent Debian OpenSSL vulnerability, and gave a highly informative presentation on RFID security at HOPE 6.
Deviant Ollam, lockpicker extraordinare who hosted a great talk on traveling with firearms on the airlines (and how it means better security for your luggage)
Another noteworthy addition to this year's HOPE was RFID-enabled badges that could be used to track people throughout the con. They only had enough for the first 1400 of roughly 3000 attendees, but I was one of the lucky few to get one. Unfortunately, at some point the battery snapped off of mine and I wasn't able to participate, though I still think it was a very cool idea. There were graphs on televisions put up around the con where you could see how many people were in a given room at any time. Much of this was experimental and fell short of the intended goals, but it was stated during the closing ceremonies that they intend to do this again at the Next HOPE, and I'm sure it will be far more refined by that point.
And now for pictures. You can see my descriptions to the side of the images. Click the thumbnails to view the larger versions.
The Main Screen area on the second floor, which played movies and streamed the main talks throughout the con. Note the convenient cots available for use.
Some random human traffic around the Microcontroller Workshop area. The Hackerspace Village can be seen in the back.
Some of the 'commons' area, as I like to call it. Just random tables set up for people to sit down and plug their computers in. The Lockpicking Village can be seen in the back.
A snapshot of the Vendors Area, with the Main Screen visible in the back. Pictured up front is the table for Make Magazine.
This set of art would be the first thing you'd see after registering and taking the escalators up to the second floor (which has been detailed in all the previous photos).
A close-up of the center-piece. I wonder what the message is here.
Another example of some of the art found around the second floor.
Between the two pieces above sat this table, commemorating The Last HOPE and staying in line with the death theme.
Caskets adorned the front of every podium in the speaking rooms. You can see Myrcurial preparing for his talk, 'From A Black Hat to a Black Suit - How To Climb the Corporate Security Ladder Without Losing Your Soul', which was surprisingly fun and enlightening.
I had to take a picture of this 'modified' flier put up in one of the elevators. Hacker humor at it's finest.
Members of Anonymous prepare for their talk, introducing who Anonymous is and what they do.
On Sunday, they put a huge piece of paper up on the wall and encouraged people to write on it. Here is an early picture of the result.
A closer look at some of the board.
...and more.
This was just prior to a casket being hauled in by weeping pallbearers to the funeral march. Closing ceremonies were indeed a somber event.
If you're curious why it was called 'The Last HOPE': a little after HOPE 6 it was discovered that the owners of the Hotel Pennsylvania had decided they were going to demolish it. Without the Hotel Pennsylvania, it's doubtful that another place in Manhattan could be found to host such an event; I guess most places shy away from allowing 3000 hackers to converge on their property for a weekend. So the event was determined to be the last HOPE event, with many rightfully convinced that the event as we know it would not longer continue after this one. However, it was announced during the closing ceremonies that because the downturn of the economy, ironically enough, plans to demolish the hotel have been scrapped for now. There was much rejoicing.
As mentioned in this journal a few days ago, my spare bedroom/computer work room has been enlivened by the addition of some much-needed shelving. Though still a mess, the room is operable now, and as such, I've been getting a lot of work done.
Below are some photographs of my work room as of this week. More changes are yet to come, including:
Throwing out/selling some older and less used equipment
Erecting another shelf on which to house network equipment and materials
Potentially erecting a mini-shelf on which to solely house software
Adding some plastic shelving/storage units to the bottom shelf so as to make better use of the unused space
You can see my explanations to the side of the images. Click the thumbnails to view the larger versions.
This is the entry way to the bedroom in question. From this view, you can easily see my networking rack, which is currently used as a shelter for my cat box, an empty 22-inch monitor shell full of broken parts (which I intend to build a small Christmas tree out of one day), and most of my networking equipment. You can also see some bags/boxes of tools on the floor, and the left-hand edge of my bench.
This is essentially half of my bench area, which is made up of two wooden tables perpendicular to each other in a corner. We can see that the underside of my bench is almost entirely filled with large CRT monitors; on the left-hand side, you can make out an SGI workstation sandwiched between the network rack and legs of the table. The LCD monitor propped against the wall on the right is connected to what I use as my 'browsing' workstation (not pictured). A dual Pentium 3 workstation that I used to use as a home web server can be seen underneath the table's right-hand side. The rest is all just for projects I'm working on.
Here we can see the center of my bench area. The useful stuff here would be the stack of blank media discs (CD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW), the software wallets (full of all my diagnostic software and OS discs), an old HP LaserJet 4 printer (works great, even after all these years), and a test station (used for running virus scans on pulled hard drives and testing components). Right in the middle of all this is a pile of software junk that I have yet to find a good home for; my current idea is to put up a smaller shelf somewhere just for it.
Ah, the shelves. While I couldn't fit them into the shot in their entirety, you can see about 95% of them. The top shelf is primarily for vintage software, boxes full of obscure components, and documentation that I don't intend to access often. The bottom shelf is primary housing for tools and useful components, including my collection of hard drives, floppy drives, optical drives, memory, processors, cards, heat-sinks/fans, and mice, as well as some power supplies. I also keep all the relevant screws, slot covers, and a few tools up there. A big goal is to find decent plastic shelving to cover up all that visible wall space on the right. Just remember that everything you see on those shelves was on top of the bench tables for over a year. Didn't have much room to get anything done with that kind of living arrangement...
This view gives you a nice pull-away shot of most of the bench region. Not much sits to the right of the test workstation - just the 17-inch CRT monitor that its hooked up to. Note how messy the floor is; motherboard boxes that I haven't decided what to do with yet, an extra NeXtstation monitor with an old HP Deskjet on top of it...I really need to clean up this place.
A view of my ongoing 'Wall of Certifications'. I don't have anywhere else to put these things, so I thought i'd start a wall full of them. From left to right: Security+, A+, CCNA, Network+, MCP, and MCSE. They never sent me my MCSA cert and I'm still waiting on my CIW. It's kind of difficult to tell, but if you look above the Security+ certification, you can see how bad I am at hanging things up.
A close-up of the CRT (a Philips that does insane resolutions). I'm making it a goal to eliminate regular usage of CRTs in my house, mostly for the cost-saving that will follow. LCDs leave a much smaller energy footprint, and I intend to reap the financial benefits of that. Hidden behind this area is more junk I haven't decided what to do with yet stacked on top of a wooden stool, and my stack of broken/old hard drives. I originally intended to make a throne out of them before realizing that I couldn't bond them together well enough, and that the weight of the throne would make it extremely difficult to move. Behind the door is a closet in which I have all my vintage equipment like 286s, IBM PS/2s, and old Mac stuff.
A view of my ongoing 'Wall of Certifications'. I don't have anywhere else to put these things, so I thought i'd start a wall full of them. From left to right: Security+, A+, CCNA, Network+, MCP, and MCSE. They never sent me my MCSA cert and I'm still waiting on my CIW. It's kind of difficult to tell, but if you look above the Security+ certification, you can see how bad I am at hanging things up.
This brings us to the steel shelving unit that lines the wall parallel to the wooden-shelved-wall. Proudly displayed here are the original Compaq portable, some NeXtStation monitors, a toaster-sized SGI machine (non-working), two NeXtStation laser printers, and a stack of SGI Indy workstations. The hallway is visible through the doorway on the right.
Here we see an iMac standing in front of a G3 tower, an SGI Indigo (non-working, and a series of Sun workstations. The two actual NeXtStations I own are directly to the right of these Sun boxes. On the midget shelf we can see my old high school laptop (A Cyrix 466, I believe), an HP Vectra computer (delightful in its tiny size - runs off a Pentium 3 CPU and takes mostly laptop parts), my XO laptop sitting on an external Sun tape drive, and a NeXtStation video cable that was made by my friend Jason for me (pictured in the photograph on the right).
A modular Catalyst 5500 sits next to a rack-mount Sun server, some DECStations, and some SGI boxes (including two Octanes). However, these are obscured by a mess of stuff I haven't gotten rid of yet. Not much interesting here.
And to make sure I go out on a less-than-spectacular note, here is a pile of stuff next to the steel shelves that just haven't been put somewhere yet. The box of ethernet cabling normally sits on top of the network rack, and below it you can see two 500' spools of CAT5E that I recently bought from Menards (on sale for $29.99 each!). A stack of good keyboards also rests on an empty ATX case. If you look at the midget shelf just above you can see my old laptop. In the top left corner is pictued a Celeron 466 machine I intend to format and sell for cheap, or maybe just strip for parts.
Now mind you that these aren't the only computers I have. There are still a ton packed away in that closet, and I have a different set up in my dining room and bedroom (I actually use those two computers the most, actually). I intend to document and inventory most of the exotic PCs pictured in this entry at some point, which may or may not be of interest to some of you.
I'd love to see anyone else's workbench, if they would be willing to share.
Last week, I was discussing my new laptop with a coworker. The conversation ended up with me coining a few simple phrases that I think frame my thoughts on some of the major operating systems out there:
me: For me, Vista is like saying 'Here is a brand new car. Its uncomfortable to sit in, ugly, costs a lot more, and isn't fun to drive...but, it's new!' me: Ubuntu is like saying 'Well, I've got this really cool used motorcycle. It's inexpensive, looks cool, is a lot of fun to drive, but it needs some work to get it to be fully functioning.' me: Windows XP is like saying 'I'm the reliable car you've owned and ran for years. I'm not that fun anymore, but I'm not a drag to ride in either. I'm getting older, but I still run just fine. Plus, you've already got me, so you don't have to spend anything to fix me up or buy a replacement if you don't want to.' Nick: what about 2000? me: Same thing as XP, but add 'The a/c doesn't work and the windows and steering are manual. And you need new brake pads.'
Now I'll admit, these probably aren't the most accurate representations. I'm not by any means knowledgeable about cars, except for a few popular conceptions. Still, I decided to expand on this and give some representations of what cars I think certain operating systems resemble, and why.
Windows ME: Ford Pinto - Prone to dangerous explosions when confronted with routine damage. Heavily condemned by Ralph Nader in multiple publications.
Windows 2000: Used Honda Civic - Fuel-efficient, comfortable, and reliable - but aging. Perfectly fine for functionality, but often in need of minor repairs.
Windows XP: Used PT Cruiser - A good family car with a goofy look. Aging, but surprisingly reliable and perfectly usable with regular maintenance.
Windows Vista: Hummer 2 - Huge, inefficient, and popular with people that have too much money and too little sensibility.
Mac OS Pre-X: Yugo - Ugly, foreign, and known to be of questionable quality.
Mac OSX: Volkswagen Bug - Expensive and foreign, but efficient. It's style makes it popular with yuppies, artists, and bearded coffee-house types. Engineered by Hitler.
UNIX: Ford Model T - The original. Highly influential and perhaps the first mass-produced of its kind.
Ubuntu Linux: Used Honda Nighthawk - A lot of fun to drive, efficient, and inexpensive. However, it is in need of some repair and usage should not be attempted by those without the time and/or know-how to get it working properly.
BeOS: Delorean - A different approach to the industry whose popularity was cut short when the owner was caught trafficking drugs. Now exists primarily as a collector's item for people with too strong a nostalgia for the 80's and Back to the Future.
OS/2 Warp: AMC Gremlin - Oddly named competitor to the Ford Pinto by a powerful underdog. Though safer, it was a tremendous flop and production has since fallen to the wayside. It is also now primarily a collector's item.
I welcome any corrections or additions to this table.
