What is that?
It's a duck pond.
Why aren't there any ducks?
I don't know. There's never any ducks.
Then how do you know it's a duck pond?

That New Economy Again

The Palm Software Store is having a 25% off sale (which has the nice effect of turning US-dollar prices into Aussie dollars) so I hopped over there this morning and bought most of the software I been trialling, including Facer Launcher (an applications manager), Palmary Clock (a, well, a clock, but it does everything you could imagine needing from a clock, like multiple alarms at different times on different days with different sounds, so you can play Reveille at 7 on Monday morning but have a gentle pip-pip-pip at 8:30 on Saturday, plus sunrise and sunset times, phases of the moon, and so on), Pocket Tunes Deluxe (a good, if not especially remarkable, MP3 player), Warfare Incorporated (which is Command & Conquer for your PDA - or, if you have a long memory, Dune 2) and of course PDAmill's indispensible Snails (wherein two opposing snail armies reduce each other to escargot using everything from handguns to nuclear missiles).

Eh. Anyway, in return for my $130, I got a bunch of emails and some links where I could download the full working versions.

Total human inolvement (apart from me, the customer): Zero
Total environmental impact: Well, I leave my computer on all day anyway, so: Zero.
Total irreplaceable resources used: Zero.

And yet I have a collection of wonderful new tools and toys, and a bunch of small companies in America and Europe have my money. I'm happy, they're happy, and all that happened is some photons went from Australia to America, and some other photons came back the other way.

Economic magic.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:21 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Helpful Household Hints

At least if you live in a house like mine...

If you are the proud owner of a HighPoint RocketRAID 1640, and your BIOS revision (displayed on the configuration screen when you boot at the top right) is anything less than 2.05s, go to the HighPoint site, download the latest BIOS revision, make yourself a boot floppy, copy the BIOS loader program and the loader onto the floppy, reboot, and update that damn BIOS.

I don't remember what version my card had, but the new BIOS is much much much better, transforming a uniquely sucky card into one that seems, so far, adequate.

More news as it comes to hand. First I have to get through building a 600GB RAID-5 set. That took 7½ hours before; maybe it will be quicker this time...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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The Bluebird of Crappiness

So, I finally got around to installing my new SATA RAID controller in my Windows box.

That's why I'm posting this from my Linux box.

Windows box, she no boot no more. Nor can I re-install Windows.

Pfui.

While I'm here: The controller is a HighPoint 1640. The only brand of RAID controller I've had uniformly good experience with is 3Ware, and they're damned expensive. Does anyone have any recommendations for a cheap(ish) SATA RAID controller that does RAID-5 and doesn't utterly suck? Or do I blow my budget into tiny little pieces and get a controller that will at least work?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:18 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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