GarrettW.net

LOLquote.

Garrett W. — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 04:34:38 +0000

“Psychiatry may not care about apathy, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”
– McManWeb.com

The Best TIMs (Thermal Interface Materials aka compound or paste)

Garrett W. — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:41:16 +0000

TIM Consultants T-C Grease 0098 [aluminum oxide]
Tuniq TX-2 [silicon oxide grease]
This is what I use.
OCZ Freeze [aluminum oxide]
Arctic Cooling MX-2 [aluminum oxide]
Noctua NT-H1 [silicon oxide grease]
I’ve seen this one recommended for those who have a phase-change cooling solution, as the Tuniq stuff apparently will not work with it.
Arctic Silver 5 [polysynthetic silver]
The disadvantage of this one is the 200-hour curing period necessary before it will perform at its best. I used to use this one.

Notes:

For heatsinks with a copper base, it is advisable to avoid using silicon-oxide-based pastes for best results.
I myself have done no testing, and these results are primarily for my own record, having read many reviews on different products. I saved the results of my (incomplete) research into a spreadsheet, and I have 3 different versions available for you to download: OpenOffice “.ods” (recommended - 20KB), Excel “.xls” (71KB), and CSV (6KB).
FYI: The lines highlighted in gray mean that my research is not complete for those particular brands.

Any of you ever had a wart?

Garrett W. — Sun, 18 May 2008 05:49:31 +0000

I know its random but I’m curious as to how people usually get them off because i have one on my hand, and I’m using some liquid stuff I got at Wal-Mart that was much cheaper than the freeze-off solutions.
Anyway, not until i looked up info on WebMD did I find out exactly what the stuff is supposed to do, and why I just screwed up the process.
The past couple of days, I’ve been pretty diligent about putting it on, and tonight after noticing the slight toughness of the skin around where I had applied the stuff, I proceeded to try to remove what I thought was merely a film of the liquid that had hardened.
That may have been true to an extent, but what I picked at and eventually tore off must have been an entire layer of skin around it.
WebMD says the stuff eventually creates a blister around the wart, lifting it off of the skin… and that would explain the unusual watery discharge as i began to pick it away.
:/
So, now I have a band-aid on it, waiting for it to heal a bit before I start over. Ugh.

Service Pack 3 is out!

Garrett W. — Wed, 14 May 2008 01:21:40 +0000

Yes, friends, it’s what you’ve all been waiting for … the final service pack for Windows XP. And I consider it a must-get.

If you’re installing on one computer that has high-speed internet: Visit Windows Update
Or, to install on multiple/offline/dial-up computers: Download the full service pack (316 MB)

If you’re interested, you can read the SP3 release notes to find out everything that’s new - or, you could also skip straight to the list of fixes in SP3 (beware, it’s a long list!).

Enjoy - and happy XP computing to all!

My Gaming News show on GUNRadio

Garrett W. — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 07:43:32 +0000

Here’s the deal, I did the first of my news shows tonight, recorded it, edited the recording (as much as possible), and now it’s up on the GUN site.

webhead’s Gaming News for 3/28/08

DreamHost and Overselling

Garrett W. — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:49:59 +0000

Here’s a company that does very well with a business model that relies on overselling. But in reading the article and looking at exactly what they offer, I can’t help but think that I wouldn’t run a hosting company quite like they do (if I even had one, of course). Now, I haven’t sat down and figured out just how I might run such a business; I’d probably oversell to some degree (I’d be naive not to), but not to their degree.

Edit: Just found this article - it’s not explicitly about overselling, but it does give some insight into how a hosting company might sell their services.

Check out GUNRadio

Garrett W. — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:45:00 +0000

There’s a new Internet radio site getting started from the community of the IRC network I frequent (GlobalGamers.net) - it’s called GUNRadio, a.k.a. Gaming Unlimited Network Radio. Broadcasting is currently not 24/7, but remember it’s just starting. I’m now a DJ on there, too.

** Winamp is preferred but not required. Several other media players will play these streams. **

http://radio.gamingunlimited.net:8021/

Latest Info

Garrett W. — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 05:57:06 +0000

I haven’t been using this blog like I thought I would originally … mainly because the hosting company I thought a friend and I were going to start has never materialized.

I have a new design for the site that I made a while back, and after I polish it up and slice it into HTML, I might try to bring it online. I do have a screenshot of it below … so I’d appreciate comments on either the current design or the new one. There’s something about the new one I don’t like — but I can’t pin down exactly what it is. It’s clean, but it lacks spice, I guess. Maybe it’s because there’s no red in it - but I’ll have you know I did try red for that top area - and something about it just wasn’t right.

Anyone got ideas on how to improve it? or how I could possibly have some red in there somewhere?

Merry Christmas???

Garrett W. — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 23:03:01 +0000

To All My Liberal Friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great - not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

To My Conservative Friends:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Nah, Microsoft still requires some degree of validation

Garrett W. — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 03:29:29 +0000

OK, so maybe I was too quick to rejoice. After all, this is Microsoft we’re talking about.

So today, I got the last of my parts in, and was able to try activation. Unfortunately, their system wasn’t as permissive as I’d hoped it would be. For starters, it didn’t just instantly verify me and spit me back a code to enter. But it didn’t instantly make me talk to a customer service rep like it used to, either. Apparently their computer is now smart enough to ask me the same questions the rep had to ask me before. Things like: how many computers is this copy of Windows installed on (only 1), has there recently been major hardware changes (yes), did I get a new motherboard (yes), was the old one defective (no) … OOPS sorry, something in our license makes me not want to validate you. Now you have to talk to a rep anyway.

… one who would pretty much ask me the same general questions. But HE would give me the installation ID I needed. How thoughtful!

So thankfully, I am now validated. And hopefully I won’t have to bother with that again for a long time to come.