UDINK.ORG: February 2002 Archives

Anybody know of a good popup killer? I'm using Popup Killer right now, but it just doesn't work the way I want. It'll kill automatic popups, but it also kills popups that happen when I click something, such as a comment link on Ty's site. I guess what I need is a popup preempter--something that can tell whether or not I clicked something to make the popup appear. Having to disable Popup Killer when I want the popup window to appear is just a pain.

Update: I've messed around with Popup Killer for a bit, and figured out how to make it work the way I want it to (so far, anyway). Go to Options > Preferences > Detection; Enable the Smart engine, and set the slider to 25 (right in the middle). The level of sensitivity set by that slider isn't documented in the help file, but 25 seems to be the magic number between auto (onLoad) popups and onClick popups.

Update II: It killed an onClick popup on this page, so it's still not right. I'll either get it figured out or just quit using it. =)

Ty's vote for 95-105 MPH on the new poll really should count for more. After all, it was in a Yugo going 96 MPH with Ty, me, Jorge, Big Russ, and Big Rodney Vasquez in the car. Trust me, that's much scarier than going 125+ in any car.

The fastest I've ever gone is about 120 MPH in my Nissan, when Traci and I were on our way back from Lake Powell a few years ago. The speedometer only reads up to 115, but the needle kept going past to what I estimate was 119 or 120. We had the car loaded down with about 300 pounds of camping gear, but I don't think that affected our speed too much. It was a very long flat stretch of road, and any car could have hit its top speed there. I actually backed off before we got going much faster, but I still had about 1000 RPMs left to go before the tach redlined.

I have a hard time coming up with decent poll questions lately...well, probably because it's a pretty much useless function of my site. =) I came up with this one after doing a little over 100 MPH on my way to Helper today. I figured if I was going to get rid of the car soon, I'd take her on up to 100 one last time. I'm going to miss that car.

I'm an idiot. I forgot that my wife's uncle owns a service station out in Helper, and he does exhaust repair too, so I called him this morning and asked him if he could put a muffler on my Nissan. It's been almost three months since the old muffler fell off, and if I'd remembered, I could have had it replaced back then for dirt cheap. He only charged me $60 for a new muffler & tailpipe, and now that's one more reason for potential buyers to not be able to talk me down on the price. Now if only I could get the A/C working. Oh, and that squeaky belt too.

I had a guy come drive my car yesterday evening, and he seemed really interested. He said he was waiting to get approved for a small loan, and he'd get back to me as soon as he heard back from the bank. Hopefully I get a taker soon--I really want my truck back on the road, or rather, off-road.

It's strange, I've gotten more calls on my Nissan since I put it up for sale a week ago than the previous two times I've tried to sell it combined. The only difference this time is that I used die-cut vinyl lettering on the windows, rather than a regular old for-sale sign. When I finally sell this thing, and I think that'll be soon, I'll be using the money to get my truck fixed. It's almost camping season. =)

For those who pay attention to this sort of thing, all sites that I link to in posts from now on will no longer automatically open in a new window. This is partly due to reading this article that Bret linked to. If you care enough, shift-click on the links instead. =)

We took Michael back up to Provo today to get blood work done again, and we won't get the results 'til next week sometime, but I'm sure everything is going well. Giving him his iron supplement every night is the most awful thing I've ever had to do in my life, and we've still got 16 more weeks of it. We've tried giving it to him with juice, but he refuses to drink it out of his sippy cup, so Traci has to hold him down while I use a syringe to force it into his mouth. It feels like child abuse, and I hate it--probably not as much as Michael does, though.

I'm planning a trip to Nutty Putty Cave on March 9^th, and I'm pretty stoked about it. Ryon and Jaysen are coming for sure, and maybe Mike...I was supposed to call him tonight, but I forgot. I've got to buy a new helmet (my old one got "floated" in my basement a while back), and I think I'm going to get a new flashlight too. I normally use my 4D Mag-Lite, but that thing weighs about 2¼ pounds, so I think I'm going to get one of those 3AA LED lights, or maybe even an LED headlamp. I don't want anything that'll kill the batteries after a few hours, so I've never dared to bring a small flashlight, but these LED lights look like they'll be perfect--50 hours of full-brightness, then 100 hours of "useful" light, whatever that is.

Nothing to see here, folks...move along.

I tried getting Medal of Honor Allied Assault running on my machine last night, but I guess it won't work with my video card. After updating my video drivers, installing GL Setup, and trying various other fixes, the game gave me an error message saying a video card with multitexturing capabilities was required. It's strange, because my machine can run Quake III without any problems. So I think my next computer-related purchase, after a new hard drive, is going to be a new video card. I watched Ty play the game for a bit the other night, and it just looks badass.

Ty gave me a soundcard that he happened upon, and it was giving me problems when I tried installing it tonight. These aren't the same problems as my last soundcard gave me, but I still couldn't get the thing working. Eventually I found an option in my BIOS to disable the onboard RAID controller, and it fixed whatever problem was going on. The soundcard worked perfectly, and I was happy. I then tried installing the software for my USB speakers (basically it's just volume control software), but the install program said the speakers needed to be plugged into a USB port for the install to continue. Well, the speakers were plugged into a USB port, so I tried running a file called "USBUPD1.EXE", not knowing what it was, but hoping that it would somehow force the setup program to recognize that my speakers were plugged in. Well, instead, it fucked my Windows install up--it copied over vmm.vxd and a few other virtual memory manager drivers. When I rebooted, Windows wouldn't start, and I got an error message saying that several files may be bad. I tried extracting the files from my Windows 98 CD, but I couldn't find vmm.vxd in any of the .CAB files. Which led me to re-install Windows 98 yet again.

And now, my USB ports appear to have quit working again. When I plug in my camera and turn it on, Windows brings up a message saying that it's detected a USB device and is locating the software for it, but the message eventually goes away and nothing happens. My camera software won't even recognize that the camera is plugged in. But hey, at least I've got a fucking soundcard that works. God damn it all to hell. The sledgehammer beckons.

Lessons learned: (1) NEVER EVER buy an Abit KG7-RAID motherboard. (2) USBUPD1.EXE = PURE EVIL.

I tried installing a CD player in my Subaru this weekend, but it looks like I'm going to have a hell of a time getting it installed. I didn't want to cut the factory plugs off, but I can't find a plug adapter anywhere in town, so I'll have to get one Friday when I'm in Provo. Also, instead of the antenna cable plugging directly into the stock stereo, the stereo itself has a 1½ foot cable that plugs into the antenna cable, so I'll need an extension to reach the new CD player. The stock stereo isn't exactly the same size as a DIN receiver, either--it's got the right width and height, but it's about ¾" too shallow, so my CD player sticks out from the dash that far when I use the stock mounting brackets.

I checked out Crutchfield's site, hoping to find a mounting kit, but all they have for my vehicle is an under-dash mounting kit. I'm certain that they make a kit that will let you mount a receiver that sticks out from the dash a little--Mike Marshall had one in his '72 Ford truck. I think I'm going to have to go to Sound Warehouse or some other car stereo place up north and talk to an actual person about it, 'cause I know somebody must make a mounting kit for my car...I just can't find one on the internet.

I washed my Nissan yesterday to get it all prettied up so I can sell it, and what do you know? It snows like a bitch today.

Today has been a long but fun day. I spent most of the earlier part of the day getting ready for Michael's party. The party itself was nice...we had a shitload of people crammed into our tiny house, and I was afraid the floor would give out and we'd all end up in the basement. Michael seemed to have fun, but I think he was confused about what was going on with so many people over. He didn't make as big of a mess as I thought he would with his cake, but we still had to give him a bath afterwards. Now he's got a ton more toys than he used to have, most of which make a lot of annoying noises. Oh, the joys of being a parent. =) Now my house is a mess again, so I'll probably spend most of tomorrow cleaning it back up. That, and watching the Daytona 500.

Michael's doctor called back today with the results of his blood test, and he does have iron-deficiency anemia. Apparently, it's due to the fact that he relies almost solely on breast-feeding for nutrition and that he was born prematurely. So his doctor prescribed an iron supplement, and after taking that for a week, we have to go back to the hospital and have another blood test done to make sure it's working, and after that he'll be on the supplement for four more months. So it's not a big deal, and I'm not at all worried about it. When his doctor first said he might have anemia earlier this week, I thought it might be a permanent thing, but the iron supplement should correct the problem relatively fast, then things will be back to normal.

We're also trying to wean him, feeding him more grown-up foods. He loves Cocoa Krispies with milk, and he likes to eat Cheerios plain. And Saturday, we're giving him chocolate birthday cake--we'll see what kind of mess he makes with that. =) It's hard to believe he's a year old, but on the other hand it seems like he's been around forever.

Nero miraculously started working on my computer again. Last night, I found this site that had a nifty util (just a few batch files, actually) that updated my ASPI drivers, but even after rebooting my machine, Nero still crashed on startup. For some reason, when I tried starting Nero this morning, it worked. So I finally burned copies of some CDs that I've been borrowing from Ty, and I burned a few audio CDs since that's all I can listen to until I get a new soundcard.

Speaking of soundcards, I forgot to get one while I was up in Provo yesterday. I had intended to go up alone, work for a few hours, hit EBC or LS Micro and get a soundcard, then head home. But Monday, Michael had a blood test done at the health department, to test for anemia I believe, and it turned out that his iron level was very very low. So we called his doctor and got an appointment for yesterday, where they tested him again, and it was still low. They sent us to the hospital to have the lab there draw blood and run all sorts of tests on it, and we won't find out the results for another week or so. I'm not too worried about him, and neither is his doctor. He said he may just end up prescribing an iron supplement for Michael, and I hope that's all he needs. Anyway, with all the running around I did--picking up my family, going to the doctor, then back to work, then picking them up again, then going to the hospital--I forgot all about my soundcard, so it'll have to wait 'til next week. It's pretty sad that it's worth it (financially) for me to drive 160 miles round trip to buy a soundcard, rather than paying a shitload for one in this shithole town. If I wasn't already going to work, though, it would definitely not be worth it.

I'm going in to work again tomorrow. I think I might cruise over by the olympic venue at Seven Peaks in Provo and try to snap a few pictures. Not that I think I'll see anything interesting, but who knows?

The software (Nero) that came bundled with my CDRW drive just quit working today. It causes an invalid page fault in kernel32.dll, and no amount of uninstalling and reinstalling and tweaking can get it working right. I've got an email off to their tech support, but I doubt they'll be able to help. I'll probably just end up grabbing a copy of Easy CD Creator or something similar. I was going to burn some audio CDs to take to work with me, but I guess I'll just bring my mp3 collection instead.

Well, I've gotten pretty much everything up and running smoothly again. My USB ports work again, but my soundcard still wouldn't work--but at least my sledgehammer works perfectly. =) I'm only using up about 2.5GB of space on my hard drive right now, and the only things I haven't put back on it are my mp3s and my pictures, which I think I'll just leave on CDs until I need them.

I've burned 18 CDs worth of MP3s, pictures, and other miscellaneous files from my computer, and I'm going to format my hard drive this evening when I'm finished working. I'm also going to take all the peripherals out of my system and add them one at a time after installing Windows again. Hopefully I'll be able to resolve my sound and USB problems, and maybe I'll even get my 6.4GB Quantum drive working again, but I'm not too sure about that. I'm sure I'll run into some problems, so it may be awhile before I'm back online--that is, if I don't get frustrated and use a sledgehammer to fix the problems.

By the way, the CDRW drive I bought works damn well. I got it at Sam's Club, it's a 24X10X40, and I paid $90 for it. I was wary about buying hardware from Sam's Club, but it turned out better than buying that piece of shit a few weeks ago from these guys--pretty soon I'll have a full review on my site of their shitty service and customer support, and hopefully I'll dissuade at least a few people from buying there.

Woohoo! This is the first year (since being married) that I've ever received a refund for both state and federal taxes. I always end up owing the federal government a lot of money and getting a small refund from the state--leaving me owing more than I get back. I'm getting almost $400, and I filed electronically, so I should get the refunds just in time to blow it all on legal fees. Oh joy. =)

Check out Solo's new Chick Tourney. Now.

Today was the fifth time since Friday that I've driven from here to Provo and back, and I'm getting really sick of that drive. I don't have to go up again until next week for work, then it won't be for another two weeks, hopefully.

I filed the complaint in my lawsuit against the city today. It feels good to finally be doing something about it, but it sucks spending shitloads of money on attorneys. I've already spent over $2,000, a small part of which they still have in a trust account for future work they'll need to do, but that'll probably be gone quickly. I guess $300 of that went for a bond of undertaking, which is necessary just to file suit, so I should at least get that back. I feel comfortable with my attorneys, though--they seem competent and confident, and I feel confident in their abilities to do the job right. Now it's pretty much a waiting game until the city responds to the complaint, which they have 20 days to do. It takes their insurance company months to respond to a notice of claim, but I'm sure the city attorney won't let this one slip by, 'cause it means an automatic judgment in my favor if he does.

Up until tonight, my wife would often let our son play with our cordless phone. I would always get a little mad at her for letting him do it, and I always said he'll end up calling 911 if she continues to let him play with it. Well, about a half-hour ago, we got a call from the 911 dispatcher asking if everything was ok--it turns out that Michael dialed 911, and they had to send the police out to verify that everything was alright. It was pretty embarassing.

Since I can't use my USB port to get the pictures off my camera, I tried using the serial cable that came with the camera. And damn, is it slow--it took me over three hours to get 50 pictures off the camera. Hopefully by this weekend I won't have this problem anymore.

I took my Subaru off-road for the first time today. Traci and I were on our way home from Provo, and right before entering the Red Narrows, we saw some deer grazing just off the road. There is a dirt road that meanders up above where the deer were, so we turned off, put it in 4-low, and crawled up the snow-packed hill. Not only was I relieved that we made it up the hill, but I was surprised at how well the car handled it. The rear-end slid sideways a bit when the road tilted to the left or right, but other than that we went straight up without any slipping and sliding. When we got above the deer, I got out and walked down towards them, and I got to within 75 yards and took some pictures. I think I could have gotten closer, but I didn't want to spook them because the only direction they had to run was towards the highway, and I didn't want to be responsible for injuring or killing any innocent animals (or motorists).

Update: Here are the pictures I took on my way home--some are of the deer, and some are of the ice formed by the groundwater seeping out of the sides of Price Canyon.

Grr...my ISP changed the IP address for my DSL. :( Now I've got to update my dhs.org and Extreme Tracking accounts, among other things.

This weekend was great, though largely uneventful. We spent the night at Jaysen's Friday night, slept late the next day, then did some shopping. We got some stuff for Michael's first birthday, and I got a new office chair, a CDRW drive, and a CD Stomper with some labels. After all our shopping in Utah County was done, we headed up to Salt Lake and stayed the night at Mike's place. Sunday, after sleeping late yet again, we went to the mall, where I hit the Tinder Box and got a few packs of Djarum clove cigarillos. The highlight of the entire trip was eating at Sconecutter--yes, I love Sconecutter. I got my usual, a turkey pita platter, and I also got an extra pita sandwich to take home.

This week, I'm going to spend some time burning CDs, trying to backup everything I need from my computer. Then this weekend, I'm going to format my hard drive (first time since I bought it several years ago) and reinstall everything. Reinstalling Windows over itself didn't help with my USB problem, so this is the only choice I have left. I'd like to just get a new Western Digital 40GB drive and install everything onto that now, but I can't afford it now, and I can't wait 'til next month to get my computer working right. I can't use my printer or get the pictures off my camera until I get the damn thing fixed.