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I have finally given up trying to reinstall windows on the previous hard drive. Everytime it would get to the Windows installation it would always stall once it hit the spot were there was approximately 13 minutes remaining. This was the portion where it said it was registering components. I left my computer on all day while at work to see if it was just being a bit sluggish, but when I came back it was at the same point. The was the third time in a row after a complete erasure of the drive that it would stall at this point in the reinstallation.

After talking with a few people who know more about computers than I do, we decided that it was some sort of hard drive malfunction. Great. I went to a store called Computer Stop in north Seattle and picked up an 80 GB Seagate hard drive for $50. I came home and took out the defective hard drive and installed the new one. Now I am in the process of once again attempting to install windows. Hopefully it will be a success this time.

Final Note: My computer is finally back up and running again! I didn’t feel like putting on yet another post about my computer woes. Unfortunately though I am without my Microsoft Office software, but I will have to take care of that at a later date.

Uncategorized hard drive, reinstallation, windows, xp

Adding to the fun things that have been happening to me lately are truck problems. I have a 1994 Ford Ranger that I have driven for the past seven years or so. Now that I live in the city, having a 2WD pickup truck doesn’t really make a lot of sense for me. The truck is really underpowered and has a lot of things that need to be fixed.

Here is the list of things that I know are wrong with it:

• Needs new tires
• Replace windshield (cracked in two places)
• Replace rear drum brakes
• Get new shocks all the way around
• Replace clutch

There are probably a few other things wrong with it that I don’t know about, but this is the list of the big ticket items that it needs. I figure I can get some cheap-o tires for $200, windshield replaced for $600?? (not too sure what these go for). Drum brakes are $500 easily. I think my quote a few years back for new shocks and install at Les Schwab was around $400-$500. A new clutch with install should set me back another $800.

All in all we are looking at about $2600 assuming that my guesstimates are somewhat close. That is a decent amount of money to put into a truck that isn’t worth a whole lot more. I guess the only good thing it has going for it right now is that it only has 110,000 miles on it, which is very low for a 1994 vehicle. That’s only 7,800 miles per year. I guess I should feel good since I haven’t had to replace any of these items since getting the truck at 56,000 miles in 2001.

So here is the fun stuff that I was going to get in to. When I got off the bus at the park and ride this afternoon I walked back to where my truck was parked. As I walked towards it I decided to look at my tires for some reason or another. Maybe something caught my eye. I can’t really remember right now. Anyway, I noticed what looked like a hole or a missing chunk out of my front right tire. It wasn’t huge, but noticeable. As I started to look a bit closer at the tire I noticed a screw jammed into my tire. It was in as far as it could go. The interesting thing if you want to call it that was that there was a washer on the screw as well. I’m not sure if someone did this or if I just happened to run it over. I tried to pull it out hoping that maybe it was a short screw. As I started to pull up on it I heard air seeping out. I decided to just leave it in and hope for the best, especially considering that it had been in there for who knows how long and it was still holding air. I think that my project for this weekend will be that I get new tires for the truck. It definitely needs them.

Random ford, ranger, repairs, tire

I am getting a lot closer to having everything all installed on my computer. Monday night I was up until about 1:30 a.m. reformatting my hard drive. The process was taking so long for it to reformat that I decided to just go to bed and pick it back up another day. Tonight I should be able to complete the reinstall process and hopefully get most of my drivers and programs back in as well.

Once I get all that settled in I should be able to get back up to date with Microsoft Money so that I can report my weekly expenditures. Last week I went just a tad over budget mainly thanks to buying a new version of XP and having to buy a father’s day present as well.

Yesterday I began the progression to moving over to the desk side of my job rather than being on the teller line. I think I will definitely excel in this position. I haven’t quite gotten into loans yet, but I can open new accounts and other products and services.

Uncategorized

This is a test post. For some reason it won’t let me post.

Uncategorized

I have spent the majority of my day today attempting to reinstall windows XP on my PC. The main dilemma that I had was that I could not even start windows, which was the reason that I had to reinstall in the first place. Because I could not start windows, I was unable to back up my files. In order to back up these files, I ended up spending the majority of my time trying to find out how to go about doing this.

What ended up happening was that I had to use a program called Knoppix. From what I gathered, Knoppix is the CD version of the Linux operating system. This means that you don’t have to install Linux/Knoppix on your hard drive for it to work. All the files that your computer needs are on the CD.

To get Knoppix onto a CD, you first need a working computer which I luckily had. Then, you must go to the main Knoppix website to download the latest edition. After you download, you can then burn the .iso file to a CD. Next, you will need to set up your boot menu on the broken computer so that it boots from CD first and then Hard drive. This way it will automatically boot into the Knoppix program.

Once I got this all set up, I had some initial struggles getting the program to work. It seemed like everything was working alright,  but then the screen would go blank and say “out of range.” I think this happened because the screen that I was using was an LCD 19″ screen. After doing a bit of research I found out that if you hit F3 at the first screen, you can enter special setup commands. The command that got my screen was “knoppix vga=0″. After that everything worked perfectly more or less.

From time to time the Knoppix system kept crashing on my while I was trying to transfer files. I wasn’t expecting perfection, but this was getting annoying. I tried to find some other Linux programs to run. The ones I came across were “Damn Small Linux” and “Slax.” I found Damn Small Linux to be about worthless, but I don’t think I knew what I was doing. For some reason it wouldn’t let me access my files on my hard drive. Slax kept crashing, so I was even more worthless to me.

I decided to go back to Knoppix because that was the only one that had worked for the most part so far. When I went into the F3 screen I noticed that there were some other available commands. One I believe was called “toram.” This command temporarily installed Knoppix on the RAM in your computer. This allows the program to run entirely off of the RAM rather than constantly trying to read the CD. Once I applied this fix my crashes were but a distant memory. Also, everything ran a whole lot faster as well.

There was one annoying quirk about Knoppix. The reason I was using it in the first place was so that I could transfer files from my main hard drive to my external hard drive to be backed up. The problem I ran into was if my external was on and plugged in when I started Knoppix, then the main hard drive would not show up. If I started up Knoppix with the external off, then it would detect the main hard drive. It was only at this point where I could start up the external. Once that was detected everything worked fine.

In conclusion, I must say that Knoppix has saved my files from being deleted on the reinstall. If I were a bit more computer savvy, I could see myself switching over to Linux. It seems like they have their act together a bit more than Microsoft when it comes to certain things.

Random, Reviews, Uncategorized knoppix, linux, reinstall, restore, windows

In a previous post on the Economic Stimulus checks, I noted that I would not be getting one because I was listed as a dependent on my parents 2007 tax return. My girlfriend also had the same status on her tax return, as she was a dependent on her parent’s return as well. The other day she received a letter from the IRS stating that she should be receiving her stimulus check within the next few days. If it didn’t come by then, she should expect it within six weeks. I find that interesting, because I did her return for her, and there is no reason why she should be getting one. It will be interesting to see if I receive the same letter from them, because we had the same filing status.

According to the letter that the IRS sent me earlier this year in regards to the stimulus checks, they said, “In addition, individuals cannot receive a payment if they can be claimed as a dependent of another taxpayer…” It seems as if we would both fall under those guidelines. I am curious to see if I get a letter from them about the same thing. I wouldn’t mind getting a stimulus, expecially since I just blew $200 buying Windows XP. Oh well.

Personal Finance irs, refund, stimulus checks, windows

If you have noticed a gap between this post and my most recent one, there is a good reason for it. Apparantly my computer has been infected with some sort of virus and it has been inoperable for the past week or so.

Here is what happened:

I turned my computer on just like I do every morning, but that particular morning it decided that it wanted to check my disks. After it checked my disks it rebooted. After that initial windows screen with the scrolling squares underneath, the screen went black for about five seconds. Then an error message came up stating that file “ole32.dll” was missing so that it could not start winlogon.exe. Then it gave me the same error message for file lsass.exe. I clicked ok on each of them and the screen just went blank. If you waited long enough it would go to the desktop but nothing would come up. Lame. I tried to restart in safe mode, but no luck. I also tried to restart with the last known good configuration, but that did not work either. It was at this point that I decided that I needed to reinstall Windows XP.

Today was the day that I was to embark on my mission to reinstall Windows XP. The first store that I visited today was the local Best Buy. They were all out there, and the sales associate wasn’t even sure if they were going to keep selling it. Then, I went to the Target next door, and they were all out as well. The sales associate there told me that they would probably be out for a few more days, but the Target about ten miles north of us had two copies in stock.

I left the shopping center on a journey to find the next Target. On my way there I noticed  an Office Depot off the freeway. I thought about it for about two seconds and then darted onto the off-ramp. When I got to the Office Depot, I was immediately greeted by a friendly staff member. I told him that I needed a copy of XP. He brought me over to where they sold their operating systems. I initially went for the $99.99 version, but it turns out that this is the version that you use when you are upgrading from Windows 98 or Windows 2000.  Since this wasn’t the case I went with the standard $184.99 + state and local taxes version. This was the real deal full installation I was told. At this point I was too frusturated to buy the “upgrade” version, take it home and find out it was the wrong version, and then take it back only to find out I couldn’t return it because I had already opened it. I decided to just bite the bullet and get the “Full Meal Deal.” Yes, supersize it.

Now we are current and I am in the process of repairing Windows. It attempted to do the repair about a half an hour ago, but it restarted after 3% completion for some random reason. I did not see why because I was doing laundry in the meantime. I told the setup disk to repair once again, and now we are sitting nicely at 16% in the “h” section of the files. At this rate it should only take another hour. I spoke too soon, it decided to restart again…lovely.
So if I already had XP on my computer, why did I go out and buy a new install disk you might ask. Well…I built this computer myself a year or so ago. This would make me the tech support for when things go wrong. At the time I thought that I could just install windows from the reinstall cd that came with my Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop. It turns out that it doesn’t quite work like that. Luckily my roommate at the time had a copy of Windows that I could use, and I have used that copy since. Now that I need to reinstall, I don’t have that copy and I was forced to purchace a legitimate version.

Now nothing seems to be working. Hopefully I can figure out this mess and keep all of my old files as well.

Random, Uncategorized best buy, office depot, ole32.dll, reinstall, target, windows xp

The newest in the series of the Presidential Dollar coins came out on May 15th. This president was John Quincy Adams. I have been very surprised with the lack of demand for this coin. To my knowledge Quincy Adams was not anything special, but I assumed that the collectors would have made their rounds by now. Demand for this new coin has been so slow that in the first week of it being available we have not received a single request for the roll. I am curious to see how long it will be until someone finally asks for one.

Currency dollar coin, presidential coin

This post is going to cover the rest of the things that I spent money on for the week of 5/12-5/18. In the future I plan on having one post at the end of the week that goes over all of my purchases rather than multiple posts.

If you remember from my previous post, I had $96 left to spend for the rest of the week. Here is how the rest of my spending broke down:

• $2 for coffee
• $2 for a powerade at lunch
• $10 to park downtown
• $8 at Burgerville
• $14 for food and drinks with friends
• $6 for sunscreen
• $7 to share Chinese food for lunch
• $40 at Ross for some new work clothes
• $5 to wash my car

The total spending for this comes out to $94 dollars, so I beat my goal by $2! Right now I don’t care how much I beat my goal by, I just care that I beat my goal.

Here is the story behind my purchases:

For the weekend, my girlfriend and I were traveling to Portland, OR to visit some friends for the weekend. In order to get a head start on our drive down there, we decided to drive downtown and pay for parking ($10). Since she started an hour before me I had some time to kill so I bought a coffee ($2). It was really hot outside at lunch and I forgot to bring water so I went to Rite Aid and bought a Powerade ($2. Actually $1.09, but I don’t count change.) After work we drove down to Portland but got hungry along the three hour drive since we hadn’t eaten for lunch. We decided to stop at this fast food joint called Burgerville which was in this tiny town north of Vancouver, WA ($8). It actually wasn’t too bad. The next night we went out to dinner with our friends in Portland to this brew pub. I forget the name of it but they make some pretty good food. The beer wasn’t as memorable ($14). Before we left to go home we decided to do some tax free shopping in downtown Portland. I’ve decided to start wearing ties more often to work, so we decided to pick me out a couple of shirt/tie combos. I got two shirts and two ties ($40). For lunch we stopped at your typical Asian fast food place and got a two item combo to share ($7). On the way back we stopped at the Target at Jantzen Beach. The only thing I really needed was some sunscreen ($6). When I got home, I discovered that my car had gotten pretty dirty since the last time that I had washed it, so I decided to take it to the Brown Bear self wash. I always tend to miss a spot, but I don’t really trust the machines either. It looked good, but of course it rained the next day. It’s Seattle, go figure.

I had $2 left over from the week, but I also received $58 in repayment for utilities, so I actually had $60 in my wallet. I took out $60 from the ATM on Monday. It didn’t make sense to put $60 in just to take out $120. I’m actually not even sure if I can deposit money into the ATMs with the Money Pass symbol. I will try to find that out and report my findings.

Cash Management atm, cash, money management, moneypass, portland, Savings, spending

For those who feel like the gas tax holiday will be a great thing to have, please take this into consideration. Just because the 18 cent per gallon tax is eliminated doesn’t mean that retailers will necessarily drop prices by a similar amount. In fact, they may turn the gas tax holiday into a gas profit holiday.

Most gas stations make 10 cents per gallon or less in profits. Some just break even on gas. The reason for this is that they use the gas to get you there, and then profit off of the soda, beer and snacks that are in their convenience store. If a retailer could make a few extra dollars on the sale of gasoline they would.

Imagine that a retailer currently earns 5 cents per gallon. When the holiday in enacted, prices should theoretically drop 18 cents per gallon. Imagine that instead prices drop by only 13 cents per gallon. If this happened, there would be an additional 5 cents per gallon in savings that would not be passed on to the consumer. Guess where those five cents go? That’s right, into the pockets of the gas station owners. The gas station just increased their summer gas profits by 100%. Not too shabby. Even if the station dropped it 17 cents, that left over cent would give the station owners an additional 20% in profit for the summer. Once again, not too shabby.

Click on the following link to see what respondents to a CBS poll thought about the proposed gas tax holiday. The results clearly show that many see it as a political stunt to gain favor.

Uncategorized consumer, gas tax holiday, profit