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Archive of previous site updates
I only keep the three most recent updates on my front page; older updates are moved here, dating back to the beginning of the site.
Categorized from newest to oldest, m/d/y format
March 12th, 2006 (Sunday, 2:10PM PST)
Hmm, quite the delay with regards to to the Friday update. In the meanwhile, I've come across some videos you might enjoy. Multi Touch Interactive Screen (LCD, futuristic), Transformer Robot (real), and something appropriate to the lack of a major update this Friday: YouFail.ORG.
March 3rd, 2006 (Friday, 6:15AM PST)
The Compaq Armada 1750 Laptop Overclocking & CPU Upgrading article has been updated with information on my successful upgrade from a PII-366 to a PIII-500 CPU. On the productivity side of things, my polyphasic sleep schedule (sleeping only three hours total per planetary revolution) is going pretty well so far - that's how I can stay up all night (except for 30 minute nap breaks every 4 hours) updating the website.
February 24th, 2006 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
Minor update to the Armada 1750 Upgrade, Disassembly & Repair article - a link to superior ATI Rage Pro video drivers for the Armada 1750 (and others). Nothing else to report at this time - I did add hit counters to a few more pages, but I doubt you care about that ;)
February 21st, 2006 (Tuesday, 1:45AM PST)
The Anti-Spyware & Anti-Virus Primer has been updated, with more information on removing unpleasant, hidden, malicious software from your computer. And if you're currently using Internet Explorer for your web browsing, I strongly recommend using Firefox instead - it's much more resistant to malware and infection.
Addendeum 4:15AM PST: Furthermore, the Webcomics Suggestions & Recommendations have been updated.
February 17th, 2006 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
The IPCop article - Converting an old computer into a dedicated Internet firewall / router (for free) - has been updated with information on setting it up, difficulties with too-short Ethernet cables, and running Folding@Home on the same box.
February 9th, 2006 (Thursday, 9:00PM PST)
Minor updates to the Compaq Armada 1750 Laptop Review article - primarily links pointing to the Upgrade, Repair & Disassembly article. Perhaps some more will be ready by this time tomorrow. (Ed: next Friday)
February 8th, 2006 (Wednesday, 8:15PM PST)
Power supply instability can cause some very strange problems - an article regarding a computer power supply becoming marginal has been added to the Wireball blog.
February 6th, 2006 (Monday, 9:30PM PST)
The Armada 1750 Laptop Upgrade, Disassembly & Repair guide has been updated again, this time with added information on compatible DVD-ROM / CD-RW drives, suggestions for getting third-party drives working, and some possible fixes for Armada M700 laptops that refuse to boot.
February 3rd, 2006 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
The Compaq Armada 1750 Laptop Upgrade, Disassembly & Repair guide has been updated with information on the specific 256MB SODIMM memory modules that will work with the 440BX chipset in the laptop (and pictures!), and extended hard drive upgrade info. The Reliable Computer Hardware page has been recently updated with a couple of photographs of old keyboards (what excitement!) and the detail that the Sony CDU-311 (8X) CD-ROM doesn't seem to like reading CD-RWs.
January 26th, 2006 (Thursday, 11:30PM PST)
The Friday update this week shall be late (Ed: was ultimately pushed back to the following Friday). Working on it. But hey, at least I got Notepad++ to color-code my HTML with the same colors as 1st Page 2000 uses (use one color-coding scheme for a few years, and you get used to it). Notepad++ has some nice features, such as supporting a wide variety of languages, highlighting the line I'm working on, and collapsing sections of code to reduce visual clutter & confusion. Who knows; I might end up using ViM eventually, for its powerful text-editing nature. I'm taking my hands off the keyboard to scroll long lines, and I don't want to word-wrap - I just want to be able to jump to a specific part of a line without taking my hands off the keyboard. ViM does this.
January 21st, 2006 (Saturday, 11:30PM PST)
A quick article on slow connection performance (slow downloads) with IPCop has been added - turns out it wasn't IPCop at all. Kind of rough draft at this point, but it will improve over time. Once again, the Webcomics recommendations have been updated and Dragon Tails has been added.
January 13th, 2006 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
The Compaq Armada 1750 Laptop Repair article has been updated with an FAQ entry pertaining to upgrading to a CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive, and some suggestions for dealing with the possible CSEL conflicts that seem to commonly arise.
January 7th, 2006 (Saturday, 1:30PM PST)
I ran across an interesting article regarding Quantifying Digital Audio Player Performance, particularly bass response, by Bill Machrone. Of particular interest is that in quite a few MP3 players the output capacitors discharge too quickly, resulting in falloff when playing bass frequencies - shown on the oscilloscope graphs accompanying the article. The Wireball blog has been updated with a quick comment on my recent night bike ride, and rigging up lighting with masking tape and a makeshift taillight with clear tape and red marker. And, I'm back to using my preferred HTML editor, 1st Page 2000 for my updates.
December 30th, 2005 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
Two new pieces of art on my deviantART page; Ying Yang Yam and Tribal Head. Yes, Tribal Head would be best with black and white filling in, but I am not particularly experienced with inking or computer coloring/shading at this point. Nothing else to report at the moment.
December 22nd, 2005 (Thursday, 9:05PM PST)
Here I sit, Thursday night, and I have naught for an update at this moment. I have, however, been having great success with the Maha C401FS NiCd/NiMh peak charger (review by Imaging-Resource) I acquired a few months ago; it certainly makes using rechargable batteries much more practical. I'm going to try to complete something (possibly an update to my deviantART page) for an update over the weekend, and have it ready come Monday or Tuesday.
December 16th, 2005 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
The Compaq Armada 1750 Laptop Disassembly & Repair Gallery has been updated, with descriptions for each step of the process (one hundred and eleven images - my fingers are tired), and a larger, more readable, Wireball-style color scheme. Also, I noticed that the Choppingblock webcomic has begun updating again.
December 11th, 2005 (Sunday, 10:45PM PST)
Compaq Armada 1750 Notebook Repair Gallery is up. Still getting some of the bugs worked out.
December 9th, 2005 (Friday, 2:00AM PST)
I spent the entire two hour SGVLUG meeting Thursday night figuring out how to get FTP tunneling through SSH* working on my Windows 2000 laptop, using TTssh. I got it working, and depleted my battery just after I got it working, but before I could code an update to the Website. However, pending for no later than ... this Sunday, I'm planning on posting an update to the Compaq Armada 1750 laptop Repair article with easily-browsable, thumbnailed pictures of the disassembly process (Edit: Gallery is up). In the meanwhile, I feel justified in dragging out the BOFH excuse generator, as a distraction.
*-(There is no way that I am transmitting my FTP password in the clear over Wi-Fi)
December 2nd, 2005 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
A few slight updates to the Webcomics Recommendations page - Nemesis, for example, is updating regularly again (on Mondays). Hey, check out the Auction of the Week! (expired) Boy, I'm lazy during Thanksmasoween.
November 25th, 2005 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
Slight update of the Compaq Armada 1750 laptop Repair article - shuffled a couple of items to the FAQ section. Garb the World, a good-quality Medieval/Fantasy/Ren clothing and costume maker, added to the Links/Reviews page.
November 18th, 2005 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
I recently added a quick article on getting free eBooks from project Gutenberg and reading the books on your Palm device (using widely-compatible freeware and GPL software) to the Wireball blog. The Reliable Computer Hardware page has had a few photographs added; of Logitech mice and ASUS DVD-ROMs. And Code Name: Hunter (summary) has been added to the Webcomics list.
November 11th, 2005 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
The Compaq Armada 1750 CPU Upgrades & Overclocking page has been updated with information on the CPUMSR low-level CPU tweaking program (for doing such things as enabling L2 cache, and tweaking L2 cache latency). Also, "Concerned: The Half-Life and Death of Gordon Frohman" (a HL2 webcomic) has been added to the Webcomics list - go there and read the summary if you're interested!
November 4th, 2005 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
The Compaq Armada 1750 repair page has been updated with information on restoring the Diagnostic partition, so you can access the BIOS again. The Links/Reviews page has been updated with a link to HOWTO write ass-kicking emails and get a response. I'm thinking of adding a link to Dan's Data - PC hardware and gadget reviews! as well, but then I'm afraid that I would lose all my traffic ;) On the other hand, your chance of getting a response to your e-mail is inversely proportional to the popularity of the site you send it to (unless you resort to bribery).
October 27th, 2005 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
The Webcomics list has been updated with a link to Orneryboy, and some fixes and updates to the existing Webcomic summaries. The Links/Reviews page has had a few new links added; of greatest interest may be the Caligari 3D Animation Gallery, and the Usenet Oracle. Also, the Wireball blog was updated 1 Oct with a quickie on Cygwin.
September 24th, 2005 (Saturday, 1:00AM PST)
The Lucent / Orinoco Gold PCMCIA Wi-Fi network card is my all-time favorite, since it works. I talk about it in my blog. Also, to anyone that's written me, the e-mail catch-up is proceeding, although I'm only just getting past the spam now. Finally, the URL pointing to For Better or For Worse has been updated on the Webcomics Recommendations page.
September 23rd, 2005 (Friday, 2:30AM PST)
Added Hellbound (humor, succubus, appeals to my twisted sense of humor) and Gossamer Commons (writer marked for death by the fairies, and, uhm..storytelling?) to Webcomics list - both recommended for ages 14+. No other changes to report at this time.
September 19th, 2005 (Monday, 10:09PM PST)
Hello all - I'm way, way behind on my e-mail. My apologies for the backlog (my alternate personality [fictional] screams at me that I should point out that this is all free, yada yada, but I would still prefer to answer my e-mail on time). I should, slowly, begin the process of catching up again soon.
August 26th, 2005 (Friday, 11:30PM PST)
Did I say there would be an update Friday evening? I'm going to have to push it to Saturday. Sorry for the delay. And my apologies to those of you who I have failed to e-mail back yet, as well - I will try to get caught up on that over the next week or two.
August 19th, 2005 (Friday, 3:30PM PST)
The Reliable Computer Hardware article has been updated, with photographs of CD-ROM drives, monitors, and a joystick. Wireball's Computers and "Distributed Computing Farm" updated to reflect all the latest system configurations I currently have in operation. Featured Articles updated to reflect all the new articles added in recent months (also mentioned in the Update log).
August 17th, 2005 (Wednesday, 10:00PM PST)
Sorry for the lack of an update last Friday. I was feeling down in the dumps last week and neglected to update. There will be an update this coming Friday, this week. In the meanwhile, I've moved the old consumer advisory about checking what's in the package you buy to the Deprecated articles, and updated the Pohnpei link on the About Wireball page to point to the non-404 page hosted on Comfsm.fm. If I haven't answered your e-mail yet, I should be caught up within a week. In the meanwhile, allow me to direct you to this fascinating page on HTTP error codes that I just encountered. I think 200 codes are my favorite ;)
August 5th, 2005 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
Getting dual joysticks working in BF1942, as well as other games, as a single controller - the short article is up. I also have some pictures for Reliable Computer Hardware, which will be added no later than sometime Monday. Hmm, I also need to update my featured articles list (below) to reflect all the new articles added in recent months.
July 30th, 2005 (2nd) (Saturday, 7:45PM PST)
The article on Reliable Computer Hardware has been updated - Input Devices, Monitors, and Printers have been added. I think I'll put in photographs next time I update it, since I own most of the equipment. This may eventually include a "The Good" and a "The Bad" section, so I don't have to omit things I own but have found to be flaky or unreliable. New Featured Link below for El Goonish Shive comics. Next update: I think I'll do an article on combining two joysticks together into one massive two-handed controller. Look for it next Friday, if all goes well.
July 30th, 2005 (Saturday, 12:35AM PST)
The Wireball blog has been updated with a short post about the Which OS Are You? test. Also, as of 4:35PM, another post has been added. The IPIP-NEO Personality Test results I got say my score on Extraversion is low. I say I wait for them to come to me, kind of like a Venus Flytrap (but I do know that the brain is the best part...hmm, maybe I should go eat something now).
July 29th, 2005 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
Article on Compaq Armada 1750 Laptop Overclocking & CPU Upgrades is live. One can upgrade the Pentium II MMC2 CPU on a Compaq Armada 1750 to at least a Pentium III 700MHz. I was also going to do the Reliable Computer Hardware page update tonight, but I ran out of time - I will do it over Friday afternoon.
Featured Link up to July 30, 2005
DMFA at MissMab.com
Dan & Mab's Furry Adventures. I discovered this webcomic a few weeks ago, and I love its positive, upbeat nature - plus, it's really fun to read. Archives start off with a very simple drawing style, but take a huge leap after about 75 strips. It's kind of nice, and encouraging, to see great artists start off simply and improve as they go along. Well thought-out and very well-drawn. Rated PG. Full color, updated Mon/Wed/Fri now, very reliably. View it, if you dare.
July 22nd, 2005 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
Article on Reliable Computer Hardware added. At the moment, it just includes optical drives, but I have plenty of ideas for additional material, so it will be extended. This is also my first page (in a production environment) to utilize SSI.
July 15th, 2005 (2nd) (Friday, 2:00PM PST)
The Compaq Armada 1750 Disassembly & Repair Guide has been updated with a link to the drivers and downloads for this laptop, and information on fixing the Compaq Utilities screen problem on boot.
July 15th, 2005 (Friday, 1:00AM GMT)
Webcomics updated - Head Doctor Productions increased to a Mature rating, and Marilith (a webcomic focusing on an assassin, very well done) added to the list. I have an idea for a new article - computer hardware I have found to be reliable - not just any computer hardware, but categories that I've had lots of trouble with in the past (flaky CD-ROM drives, flimsy cases, video cards with certain problems). I'll try to get it up soon. I should start using SSI - it would make it a lot easier to write new articles (did you know I code my html by hand?).
July 12th, 2005 (Tuesday, 11:45PM PST)
I just set up Thunderbird on Linux (quite easy as a matter of fact, but I wanted to make sure it was stable before I downloaded all my e-mail to it), so I'm working through the backlog of e-mail. In the meanwhile, if I haven't answered your message yet, here's the BOFH-style explanation why.
July 8th, 2005 (Friday, 8:20PM PST)
Some information on fixing the tiny font problem in Mozilla/Firefox under Linux, and a bit of what I've learned about using Debian/GNU Linux (the apt-get tool is particularly nice). Sorry the update took so long; I got burned out after my last day of extra work on Friday the previous week, and was down in the dumps most of the week. Caffeine does not have a good effect on me (nor does sugar, for that matter).
June 30th, 2005 (Thursday, 10:50PM PST)
The Friday update is going to be delayed until Sunday morning - I've got some background actor work that's eating up the majority of my day on Thursday and Friday. I got to be a 19th century photographer today :) On to the topic of computers, a new hard drive is installed in my machine that suffered the crash, and Debian/GNU Linux has been installed (a new one for me; I usually use Windows 2000), complete with famous BSODs screen savers. However, e-mail hasn't been configured on that system yet - should be operational again by Sunday.
June 28th, 2005 (Tuesday, 7:10PM PST)
My main computer just suffered a hard drive crash, so if you sent me an e-mail and I didn't respond to it, you may need to resend it. My apologies for any inconvenience. I think I need to get TaskZIP running on my computers doing automatic nightly backups again.
June 27th, 2005 (Monday, 3:55PM PST)
Information on picking new, public DNS servers when your ISP (*cough* SBC *cough*) DNS servers are flaking out (diagnostic criteria: slashdot.org could not be found) added to the Wireball blog. My primary DNS server is now in New Orleans, my secondary is in Japan, and my tertiary is in Texas (those were the closest public servers that I could find that were working reliably).
June 26th, 2005 (Sunday, 4:45PM PST)
The Recommended Links page has been updated - now with a table of contents to speed your search! I had been planning to do something else for the update, but it was written on my hand and now I don't remember what it was. Something involving the CIA, and ... food? Weird. Maybe I'll remember later.
June 17th, 2005 (Friday, 11:00PM PST)
The story of how our car battery died, and how we thought it was something else, like maybe dirty contacts (again) in the ignition keyswitch. Up at Therealwireball.blogspot.com.
June 9th, 2005 (Thursday, 6:30PM PST)
The Compaq Armada 1750 Repair & Disassembly Guide has been updated with more information, and greatly improved readability. Read it here.
June 6th, 2005 (Monday, 10:40PM PST)
As you may have noticed, I've signed up for Google's AdSense advertising. Since Google's advertisers want interested visitors, I'm going to ask you NOT to click on the ads unless it's something that honestly interests you :) As to why I've added pay advertising to Wireball.com, well, the site honestly isn't particularly expensive for hosting (Pair Networks is good), but I do spend a lot of time on answering technical questions for people and writing new articles, and hopefully I'll get some pocketchange out of this (after hosting fees), and encouragement to work on the site more :)
Second change is I've finally upgraded my hosting account to support Server-Side Includes (SSI), which will help me work on the site and make changes to the design and content faster (since I won't have to change things on every single page). Easier updating is a good thing.
Third and final update: smaller font size...err, forget the smaller font size. Such things only work well with lighter backgrounds.
June 2nd, 2005 (Thursday, 9:10PM PST)
Added two or three webcomics I read regularly to the Webcomics recommendations page.
May 27th, 2005 (Friday, 9:00PM PST)
Some new scraps (sketches, line drawings without shading) have been added to my deviantArt account, and a gallery item that was posted earlier on my site. Sorry I don't have more; I've been feeling somewhat lethargic for the past couple of days.
May 20th, 2005 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
Using an old laptop as a portable front-end for your desktop computer, and optimizing performance on old laptops - the new article is up.
May 19th, 2005 (Thursday, 12:40AM PST)
Getting WPA Wi-Fi encryption working with 98? Not very easy. Currently I'm stuck with insecure WEP encryption, and considering just running an encrypted VNC connection to one of my wired desktop computers. Oh yes, there will be an update first thing Friday morning (12:00AM) - Topic: using old laptops effectively in modern computing.
May 15th, 2005 (Sunday, 12:53AM PST)
The Wireball Blog has been updated with a short blurb regarding a gradual hard drive failure I had recently, and an interesting graph comparing the failing drive to a good drive.
May 12th, 2005 (Thursday, 8:30PM PST)
Ars Technica Team Egg Roll needs more people to sign up and run Folding@Home, searching for cures to horrible diseases. Team 14 - one of the oldest and most well-respected teams in FAH.
(Thursday, 12:30AM PST)
Hooray - I have a deviantART account at last! I just uploaded a couple of scraps and one completed artwork to it. The scraps are new; the completed artwork is also present in my Original B&W Art page. However, unlike my page, you can leave comments regarding the work on deviantART ;)
May 9th, 2005 (Monday, 10:30PM PST)
The associated Wireball Blog has been updated again, this time with information on mirroring an operating system to a new disk, creating dedicated swapfile partitions at the beginning of hard disks, and striping swapfile partitions together. I usually post information that I don't feel like writing a whole article about on my Blogspot account and link to it here (though I may later move and expand articles to Wireball.com - if so I'll edit the Blog post to point to the new article).
May 8th, 2005 (Sunday, 12:30AM PST)
The Webcomics page has been updated again! Added three new Webcomics to the list. The top one is quite new to me (I haven't even finished reading through the archives yet), but I know I like it. Also, I'm doing my updates with PHPEdit v0.6 right now - it's a pretty powerful HTML text editor; it even closes my tags for me. Unfortunately, the freeware version isn't readily available now (they want you to pay for the release version), but I found an earlier developmental version that's pretty reliable by finding an outdated link to the download site and then using it to hunt around in the Internet Archive. YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary).
In other, miscellaneous news, Active Worlds' Grover has let his page lapse, and now his eminently-useful WebText Reformatter is no longer accessible (except for that link there - heh). Ah, but if you want the WebTextR.zip file, you're going to have to e-mail him (or me), for a copy of it (word of warning: it only works up to a certain length of text, but doing it in pieces is still faster than reformatting by hand). What else...oh yes, if you've e-mailed me recently, I might be a bit delayed getting back to you - I'm still working on the machine I prefer to do all my e-mail on (I've got it running, but I want to mirror the operating system partition to another disk, and DriveImage 2002 isn't cooperating ...yet).
April 28th, 2005 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
I'm still sick from the flu, so I'm going to take it easy this update and link up some videos I've been enjoying lately. By the way, this marks 168 consecutive hours of sickness! Woo!
I think you might enjoy the following Star Wars fan films: PA Wars 
, Duel of the Fakes (the sequel to PA Wars), and Imperial Chopper (when you download from TheForce.net, I recommend right-click and save-as; their servers are a bit overloaded).
I also recommend the following Apple.com/trailers movie trailers: Serenity (sci-fi), The Chronicles of Narnia (WETA Workshops Featurette), Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (sci-fi, trailer 3), Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (ever seen A Nightmare Before Christmas? -like that), Wallace And Grommit (Featurette), Sin City (Warning: R, but 'approved for all audiences' - comic book roots), and Kingdom of Heaven (medieval crusade warfare).
April 22nd, 2005 (Friday, 4:15PM PST)
Webcomics page updated; added Dire Destiny (well, actually that was last week, but I forgot to mention it then), Nemesis at SeppukuOnline , and Squidi.net (Editor's Note 4/28/05: some of the topics Squidi.net touches on as of late are, in the opinion of the creator, suitable for mature audiences - personally, I think it's handled much better than an R-rated movie, but you're forwarned). The update is late (and short, I'm sorry) because I came down with the flu almost at the same moment I started working on the update yesterday, and my whole body still aches. Hopefully I'll get over it quickly (drinking lots of this dihydrogen oxide seems to help). There's also an update relating to the website and another regarding spam bouncing over at therealwireball.blogspot.com.
April 15th, 2005 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
The Original B&W Art page has been updated with scans of Fear the Lemur and Weird Ornate Creature (OK, maybe I could think up better names).
April 8, 2005 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
I'm experimenting with a wider, more flexible page design (80-90% of the browser width), to require less scrolling. Comment here if it bothers you (and why, if so), or if you like it. Amazon Associates links have been added to a few pages, including Anti-Spyware and Armada 1750 Laptop Repair. Finally, recent updates have been moved to this page's Featured Articles list.
April 5, 2005 (Tuesday, 10:55AM PST)
The search engine spammer page has been updated in response to an e-mail I received from one of the search engine spammers. Addendum (12:55PM): In the interests of fairness, I decided to remove the identifying URL from the messages.
April 1, 2005 (Friday, 11:00PM PST)
The Original B&W Art page is up! Some of my pencil artwork I scanned in. Kind of stylistic with the flames and such.
April 1, 2005 (Friday, 12:18AM PST)
Rats, late with the update again. I do have all the material scanned in; I just haven't had a chance to add the watermarking and copyrights. I'll do my best to have it up by Friday evening (that should give me time to sleep). In the meanwhile, entertain yourself with the Terran Robotics is no longer incorporated message up at TerranRobotics.com.
March 26, 2005 (Saturday, 3:00PM PST)
The Anti-Spyware and Anti-Virus Primer is up, for this week's update. Sorry it's late - I'm going to try to be right on time next Friday.
March 23, 2005 (Thursday, 11:15PM PST)
Running a bit late. Update tomorrow (Friday) by 1PM.
March 17, 2005 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
Spammers must die. I've lately been receiving a new kind of spam, wanting me to link to their website, which is nothing but links. It gets worse, though. Avoid my painful process of discovery.
March 10, 2005 (Friday [2nd update], 1:05PM PST)
The Compaq Armada 1750 Disassembly & Repair page has been updated - added 320MB memory upgrade information and screenshots courtesy of Chris of iamachine.com.
March 10, 2005 (Friday, 12:20AM PST)
Errg - I'm a bit late with my update. Stayed up late posting on interesting forum topics over at Sluggy.net. However, I did update the Featured Link below to DMFA, a webcomic I think worthy of more hits. Will post more in the morning - more information on the Compaq Armada 1750 laptop, and the likelihood that it can take 320MB of RAM, contrary to what I originally thought.
March 4, 2005 (Friday, 12:00AM PST)
MissMab.com (that's a fun one to read, that is) added to webcomics links page, links updated.
February 12, 2005
My apologies if I haven't answered your e-mail yet. I'm working through the backlog here (darn spammers clogging up my mailboxes!) and should be back up-to-date shortly.
September 21, 2004
Compaq Armada 1750 laptop disassembly and repair page online! Not entirely complete, and a bit rough, but full of useful information and photographs. Due to be completed by 9/26/04.
Previous update addendum: I have added several excellent webcomics to the Links page, just a short ways down. Interesting, stimulating, and original pieces of work, and most of them are updated daily. [Jump to Webcomics]
Featured Link up to July 31, 2004
HardOCP System Building Guide 0403 - What struck me is some good information on DIY watercooling, but all the recommendations are interesting and useful to anyone building a computer.
Just one thing - I strongly recommend getting a PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool or Silencer power supply for any machine that you want to last for a while. Their 300W models produce 300W at 40 degrees C, not the measly unrealistic 25C most manufacturers use (including Antec and Enermax). Also available on eBay for under $50 (make sure you are getting ATX).
[click here for direct Turbo-Cool search]
Category: computer technical
November 5, 2003
New article about the Compaq Armada 1750 366MHz Pentium II notebook computer. Some pictures of disassembly and RAM upgrades!
[Read it now]
Featured Link for November 12, 2003
Sluggy Freelance - Beware the extremely addictive webcomic, with neat sci-fi gear in it. Beware the telemarketer-hunting switchblade-wielding mini-lop rabbit. Category: humor
October 11, 2003
We recently moved to Pasadena, California, and have been without Internet for a month. Well, except for one time when I found somebody with an open Wi-Fi connection and a cable modem. But now I'm back (and at 28.8Kbps, as well)!
Oct. 22, '03 addendum: I am planning to implement SSI (Server Side Includes) on the site soon. You won't notice anything right away when I do, but what it does mean is that I'll be able to update the site much faster and more easily. That means more content for you, the reader. You'll see a post on the front page here when I implement it :) Now, visit the below URL, if you're into webcomics!
Ray of Raytoons.cjb.net sent me an e-mail suggesting we swap links. I had a look at his Website, and it looks pretty good. Pig Men of the Press is particularly weird (use the drop-down date box to change comics). Check it out!
May 25, 2003
A person in New Hampshire found a real wireball by the side of the road, and sent me a photograph. If you're like me, you have to see it, e-mail and all. It's a very good wireball.
January 13, 2003
The triple-monitor computer page is up. Building details. How it works. I didn't even use a Matrox Parhelia.
December 22, 2002
Terran Robotics has begun updating again. Links to interesting robotical sites, including some robotic illustrators. More to come. Also coming soon: pictures of my triple-monitor computer, and building specs.
July 30, 2002
Links page updated - added link to Multi Monitor Resources. Also added Auction of the Week (see homepage), which will likely be changing to auction of the day, not too long from now.
July 24, 2002
Links page updated and new content added. Some minor updates to homepage. Added link to Shamus Young's Free Radical online book; based on the game System Shock.
July 19, 2002
Style sheets added to homepage. Some junk code removed from homepage. New content pending. Now using 1st Page 2000 for Web design.
February 11, 2000
Updated the video hardware reviews page, and created a modem/network card reviews page to help in the fight against Winmodems. :)
February 2, 2000
Began using Arachnophilia as HTML editor of choice, and updated Movie Reviews page.
January 17, 2000
Two new reviews of neato cooling products on the Cooling Product reviews page.
December 20, 1999
Added five new movie reviews, most notably one of The Iron Giant, which got an "Outstanding" rating, for being one of those few, extremely well-executed movies. Categorized movie reviews.
December 6, 1999
Got gaming machine site online, got a Cooling Product Reviews online with two products, for starters.
November 25, 1999
Put up a page on New & Cool Video Hardware
November 24, 1999
First update in a long time; announced plans to post massive updates.
August 15, 1999
Posted information about and link to a spammer-terminating Website, SpamCop (regular useage strongly recommended)
July 23, 1999
Posted consumer warning about evil Winmodems. You can read the truth HERE
July 22, 1999
Updated the Movie Reviews page with a few more movie reviews. You can read it here
July 21, 1999
Rewrote Hydra NT4 Dual-monitor Computer Page for better readability and gave answers to most commonly asked questions. click here to read it.
May 30, 1999
Rearranged main site page to put most popular articles near top, terminated Ideas page, and split the Movie Reviews into their own re-written and improved page.
May 23, 1999
wrote up a short article on running an AGP 4x card at 133MHZ or 100MHZ on an AGP 2x motherboard.
May 16, 1999
Made update to movie comments section of the hall of fame page, made comment on a delay before this site continues regular updates.
May 1, 1999
Finally implemented 3rd generation homepage. Rest of site still under conversion.
03/27/99
Updated the Hall of Fame page with a comment and rating of the excellent movie Antz.
02/16/99
Reported on attempt to make a break for 400MHZ on a K6-2 300, updated Microsloth page, added URL for info on multi-monitor 98 systems to the Links and 98 Multi-Monitor pages, thought about adding an FAQ page, and threatened spammers with the FBI.
02/11/99
Added URL link for the full information on Multiple Monitor Support in Windows98.
02/02/99
Added Hardware Quality/Reliability page, updated Hall of Fame page with more movie comments, and updated Wireball's Site Banners page with the latest banner.
01/17/99
Added information on burning in AMD K6-2 CPU for overclocking purposes, and how to get useful voltages such as 2.4V out of a Tyan Trinity S1590S motherboard.
01/08/99
Added page with screenshots of Sirocco. Also made small update to AW Improvements Suggestions page. Changed screenshots of Sirocco to clickable thumbnails for faster loadtime the next day (01/09/99).
01/02/99
links categorized and updated, updated performance tweaks page with info about forthcoming CPUs, added comment to dual/quad monitor info page, ate lots of food.
12/19/98
updated 98 multi-monitor page with new information and plausible speculation.
12/15/98
added link to Iron Fist Website, more to come
10/27/98
added dual/quad monitor information sheet (includes data on Win98), updated the Performance Tweaks page with an Innovations section and information on the latest CPU developments. 10/28/98 also updated performance tweaks page with computer maintainence tips near bottom of page.
10/7/98
added AW Improvements Suggestions page. It is a feature and object wishlist for Active Worlds.
10/4/98
(added Starcraft strategy page, added previous updates page).
9/14/98
(Links added [Brotherhood of The CPU for example], smaller counterpart specs. of Dual-monitor Computer updated, KIMONO DRAGON added to Hall of Fame [I forgot to do it earlier! sorry], and Performance Tweaks updated [info added about the latest K6-2 CPUs and how well mine overclocks], and a couple more movie comments added to the Hall of Fame)
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