This website is under construction, mainly due to a necessary rewrite of whatever content is hosted here. Some pages may contain information which is no longer relevant.
Hello, and thank you for stopping by!
On this website you'll find some helpful information about various things, especially computers and my personal experiences with them which you might relate to. I work on a lot of x86/x64 PCs, and I work on 68k/PowerPC/Intel macs. I also have other (less prominent) interests like drawing and doing media preservation. Some projects you might recognize me for are the Relax With... 30th Anniversary Collection, various HoMedics and Zenith sound machine audio captures, and the CD quality uploads of Musical Sounds of Relaxation.
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New site. No I'm not a cyberattacker or anything, I just happen to be using a .su domain.
As for how I'm doing... I am doing much better, but also suffering every now and then. I'm starting to get more in touch with myself and sometimes it does hurt me but other times it helps, especially after ignoring it for so long.
Last weekend has been insane. First I had to do several double takes seeing a red-shouldered hawk in my area, I managed to find a black and white 5" TV at Goodwill which I thought wasn't even accepted, and my dad managed to give me a free flat-panel TV and a couple of Blu-Ray players. The very next day was an even bigger surprise... I managed to find 4 AppleDesign Keyboards that were set for the landfill. Oh, not so fast! I knew I had to do something.
I thoroughly cleaned all these out by scrubbing ALL the plastic casing pieces with dish soap and a dish brush. It got all the dirt and grime off, and then I tried cleaning the cables with some IPA but I may need something stronger because there's still some grime and dirt on the cables. These were absolutely filthy when I got them. Now they all work perfectly and feel great to type on.
Yes, these feel good to type on, no joke. This is apple's best rubberdome keyboard in my opinion. They have a sense of feeling somewhat tactile while not being as noisy as older mechanical keyboards. I'd say it's a great cheap alternative to the AEK II. Just look for one made in Thailand; I think that's where the NMB AppleDesign KB's were made since all 4 of mine were made there too. People don't like these keyboards, but I think they've just tried the inferior Alps versions.
Happy (late) 2023, readers. Not a lot really happened and I have not felt very motivated to keep this site updated as of late...
I'm starting my 2nd semester of college, and it's going to be a tough one. I've got 5 classes to take care of now but I am on my way to get an associate's in science. I've also determined my new HP 15z-eh200 laptop has a failing SSD! How fun.
Lately, I picked up a JVC I'Art 27F703 for the low, low price of FREE! Yep, I finally got a good CRT. I liked my 20AF43 but I wanted something a few inches bigger. It's got quite a lot of hours on it, but I expected that. The TV still looks great after nearly 21 years which says a lot...
And to the people who call shadow mask CRTs a miserable little pile of scanlines: Shut up. I swear, PVM/BVM and trinitron enthusiasts/elitists will shill the most expensive and sought-after CRTs when they do not realize the availability situation in someone's area. I was not able to find a good Sony FD Trinitron/WEGA (pronounced "VEGA" and not "WEGA", idiots...) and it took me a while to come across this JVC I'Art TV. They are DAMN CLOSE in quality compared to trinitrons and they are probably the best shadow mask CRTs ever made. Yes, you can use "best CRT" and "shadow mask" in the same sentence. Shocking, I know...
Here's a photo of the TV in action. Interestingly enough, THAT had to be the best picture of the TV I took that I had saved... I love Super Paper Mario and its quirky writing, and it was simply way ahead of its time in that regard. Half an hour before I wrote this, I was DAMN NEAR CLOSE to beating Wracktail in the pit of 100 trials, died, and I'm absolutely livid. I guess 2 Life Shrooms was NOT enough for the NEARLY 1 HOUR I SPENT GETTING THROUGH THE FIRST 99 TRIALS.
Don't ignore JVC TVs if you see one locally or on the curb (unless it's damaged). The D-series and the I'Arts are some top-tier sets, and can show you that you don't even need a trinitron to get a high-quality picture out of a CRT. Also, if the owner has a JVC DVD theater system, take that too; the internal speakers of almost all CRT sets aren't particularly great; I managed to get a JVC XV-THA30 DVD system that supported a 5.1 channel speaker setup. Unfortunately, 3 of the speakers went missing so I was only able to set up stereo audio with a subwoofer. Still great, and it has outstanding quality.
I don't update this site often, but I promise... I am damn well still alive and kicking. I'm just a ditzy dork. *wink wink*
This here is an Indigo iMac DV from 2000, and unlike iTek... I actually know something about this computer. Well... all the specs would be a no-brainer if you left it stock, but at least I know what an old hard drive is supposed to sound like.
This unit I admittedly paid quite a bit for on eBay, and right now it has a 500MHz PowerPC G3 processor with 512MB of RAM and a 60GB hard drive. The optical drive situation is always going to suck, but luckily I have seen someone find a way to adapt a newer optical drive to the ol' (un)reliable. Turns out Apple just tacked a bunch of pins to the side for extra power on the 50-pin ODD connector, so it's still IDE at heart. As for that stupid connector that does intercept the board... we actually don't need to worry since any JAE/Slimline DVD drive to IDE adapter can work provided you know where to place the cable. I'm still going to have to figure that out myself.
I thought of adding a fan, perhaps buying a Disk-on-Module too. Maybe if I'm lucky enough, I can get someone to swap a 7410 in. Other than that, I finally have an iMac in "Tsubasa Blue"! I also have a Bondi Blue coming in someday.
I got a few computers, one of which runs Windows ME surprisingly.. fine. It's a complete HP tower set from 2000 given out by ford motor company via PeoplePC or whatever... I can't think well today, more on that later. I also bought myself a new laptop and even a couple of old iMacs just for the hell of it.
The bad news? I knocked off a fan blade while dusting out my computer. It's loud as hell. The good news about this is that I finally have a good case I can swap the whole system into, an old server tower enclosure. I never particularly liked my Musetex case for many reasons, the main one being that it has no optical bays. Also, RGB is overrated. I like my systems professional.
It's about time I made this site better. Yes, I am sure most people will complain to me that it doesn't run on IE4 or whatever, but this HAD to be done. Also, fancy blog format. I didn't write this site entirely by myself, but I did want to make a site closer to what I would have initially envisioned.
I have acquired yet another HP Desktop Replacement, the Pavilion zv6000! Writeup is on the docs page. :)
