The Dino-Aspie Ex-Café (for Those 40+... or feeling creaky)

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I guess I went to school for this stuff, one time in my past, some kind of blurr there. Didn't get far really and kind of late (school of the formal type is a no starter for me, just took me a long time to learn it, lol) They were taking out some kind of reel to reel IBM thingy that took up a lot of space and putting in a DEC20, as I recall. But I learned to type on a VIC20 and why I still can't type, it all looked good going in, till you try to read it ;p

Got me a little nostalgic... Dad and I were doing it together. He got a printer so we could "proof" our typed stuff better and then they came out with a program to "proof, your code while you did it (typed it), I think some kind of checksum. And then, we saw our first floppy, my god, the speed. My kid, who was a little s**t at the time, learned how to "bounce" it, in other words he hacked it, in short order.

I'll get speel check back up on my bar, good luck reading this, but thanks for the memorys.

And "the kid", the hacker? he just graduated from a (another) school, I guess it's a good one, so I'm told, and he's a Chef. Actually, I think you had to be one before they let you in, but not sure.... Anyway, I remember one of the first assignments in flow charting, cook an egg. I'll bet he can hack it. He used to see me do it enough around a kitchen ;p You never know what will take and won't, you just never know. Just enjoy what you do, as best you can and let the dog out once in a while.

I have another kid (grand) that writes for the IBM magezine from time to time and is into security, the computer kind, but he can't cook. (He's too politcal., but damn proud of every false conception he might hold. But what isn't political?) I think I failed him, but he's still young and yet to find his way. ;p

Postpaleo, you prompted me to remember my first computer experience. It was a college assignment to do a linear regression using a DEC PDP-8. I had to create punch cards for the data and load the program from a paper tape. Today when I install a 2 terabyte disk drive I chuckle at how amazed we all were when the first 10 megabyte drives came out!

Gosh, now I know I'm getting old when I sit around reminiscing about things like that. Fortunately, I am also now to old to care about getting old.

lol, well said

I am somewhat new to posting, I have watched the forums for a very long time. I think it is time for me to reach out to others like me. I am 44 with a birthday April 17th. I was diagnosed with Aspergers at three when I started to read books and words off the TV. I am very dyscalculic and I have had the meltdowns and everything growing up. I have been very isolated and I wish to remedy that. I hope I am welcome here?

Robert

but of course...like a muffin?

Breezing by again...

I just committed myself to a brand new machine.

This one is having BIOS problems. It took me all of Smatterday to persuade it back into Linux (Puppy, off the wrong drive, then my normal Xubuntu). Something had zapped the persistent memory in the BIOS and wrecked the MBR, and so on. Booting off an old UBCD got me back into a working Linux system that I could check/repair all my partitions from. All through the night to Shunday was spent backing up my main home directory to my 2TB external drive. (Yes - your machine invariably self-destructs just BEFORE you do your regular biennial backup.) Moonday I visited a local computer shop and got them to quote for a stripped down high performance machine. Twerpsday I handed over the cash.

Now, for no real apparent reason, this machine is behaving beautifully again. Still... from this AMD Athlon(tm) 64 3500+ 1.8GHz 2GiB DDR2 with 180GB and 200GB drives, at a cost of £608 I'll be wandering off to...

An Intel Core i7 Quad Core 3.4GHz Processor, 16GB DDR3, ASRock H61-DG3 Motherboard with a 240GB SSD. I might just notice a difference.

It should arrive tomorrow - ish.

Ooops... and a "Hi and welcome" to Marky9, Spruce6212007 and anyone else I've not noticed walking through the imaginary door, near the hat-stand with the flower pot on top and the small pterodactyls circling near the floor.

New machine?!? Sweet jeebus Lau. I best check my cache of peanuts, the world must surely be coming to an end ;p

I got one very similar to the one you describe, a little ago, and just got another one for "the girl friend". Less the ASRock (went ASUS). I've had ASRock before and loved it. I do think the power supply went on hers or the switch to turn on the machine two days ago. Upsetting, for sure, but they come so small (power supply), wattage wise, it is frustrating so, other then the pain in the ass, hope to boost the power. One never knows when one might feel the need to add something or 10.


This part not pertaining to you as much as it might to others. I'm having a really bad time trying to get 8 to 8.1 and not sure where the problem lies, not only on my machine, but on the neighbors. A couple of options, perhaps, not sure yet. Might be my lack of patience, naaaw, couldn't be that, could it?

Well, the new machine arrived yesterday, and it now has my nice fresh install of Debian 64 xfce on it. Plus (nearly) all my files from the the old machine.

Zooming around the Mandelbrot set with xaos at ridiculous speed got one of the four real processors to 100%. The other three just got to 40% each.

Not that I really know all you said, but.... ain't it amazing?


This guy, this Lau guy showed me around what google earth (maps), could really do, one day. I was hesitent, he was gentle and over a little time we even talked about other things, like books and he is so free thinking as to go other places, other thoughts. I love my shiney things, my traces of things, I would like to go to, in the moment, and so does he.

I'm happy you got a "new one", but you're always a one in a million chance, to meet. There is nothing anything newer, then you.

Finally got to win 8.1, some of it was called, no patience on my part. I will say classic shell updated on its own and very nicely. I have still to update to Explorer 11, Getting to 8.1 was not fun and I freaked to the point I tried to find a real Microsoft tech line...good luck with that one.

If you try this at home and until the problem in Ex 10 is fixed and it might be (March 11th, maybe)...here is what I learned... Start it, the update for 8.1, let it go. It is sorta major in some time frame........ It does start slow and seems like it isn't moving, it is and towards the end of the download, it finally moved, I guess, very fast, depending. All exp vary, I do dsl, on good days I get a meg a second or 2..

Be sort of honest with the bull s**t after your computer finally update, it asks you to fill in stuff, like really stuff), or during, depends on how you look at things, I didn't like what they were asking so I may have screwed up, in some ways. again, personal. I ran into a real blue screen at this point and didn't like it much, especially when I couldn't call Bill Gates personal like. Part of that is confusing, because I have no idea what I said when this computer came on line, not that you can really hide, unless you want to. This has been exasperating, but I didn't have to find some stupid ass cache ( which has been suggested in spots and figure out how to get rid of it) I had no idea where the hell they hide it. turned out easier than I thought it would be, but, beyond the norm, so shame on them. Wait till the update announcement appears on you turn on screen, so do it from there, answer sorta smart, at least write it down, (maybe, still not sure)and have patience. Best advice I can say.


Something you might want to watch, even though it looks like the BLUE SCREEN of death, you can light up some of those lines underneath ,and make them work, like ignore and next (really key to getting me through all this crap even though they might not have before). Cute I call it and still needless.

You don't need to wish me luck finally upgrading to EX 11. I still haven't done it, just nice to have the machine working again, because of an OS that really misses a mark. (it was hard to pry me from XP,, I didn't go into it very fast either) I'll be doing EX 11, what if I don't like it? Lol, I wouldn't be surprised but for hidden reasons and basic reason I'm not real fond of Windows to begin with and getting worse, they hide things.
My spell check is failing me, spry (sorry). Sometimes spell check can't chaek it, isn't always its fault, mine.

(I never liked DOS) (I hated lack of memory the worse and instructions on how to make boot disks) (now I'm just old and don't remember well) (but My games work.)

If you have tried and stopped it and it won't start again. The update, wait for it to do the "flash", the one that we all got when it came out, do it, so far the only real link that works correctly, I think, is the one that may flash forever till you do it.

IE 11 comes with the 8.1 update, maybe, if you have updates checked on 10? No clue, but I had it, just didn't know it.

I sometimes think of switching to linux, but I am computer unhandy, and the computer guy we have come in every few weeks to get rid of what I have accidentally let on my computer says I should wait til this computer breaks. I've heard so much bad about Windows 8, that I don't want to leave my now support-abandoned Windows XP. Well, that's what I think I have. As I said, not handy. I just want to write and hang in various communities. I have microsoft office word 2007. I still miss my crash-free apple.
I try to rid the computer of volunteer programs from time to time, and then I delete something that didn't look important, but it was, and we have to call Dave the computer guy again.

Loading, a bootable flash drive version of Linux, as I write. Been a while since I have looked at it, after seeing another hole in Win explorer and they're not going to fix it for XP. Really really disgusted with Explorer. I'm running version 11 on version 8.1, if that makes sense.

Got a little confused with the loader that was recommended by Ubuntu on their web page, but into, and almost done with, my forth beer and got through it just fine and see nothing that would interfere with direct help with another, say with Skype, or the like yet, to install it, maybe the beer. Still early in the process, lol and I have more beer in the fridge ;p I'm sure I can make this hard.

Very confused with the installer and not sure it's as much me as it is where the F*** windows liked to put downloads and I told it not too, not happy...need another beer, or not. I'll have one anyway and try to figure out how not to use the installer. It was geeky, does not bode well.

Nope, appears to be it, put it where you know it is and not where Windows decides to hide it....back to another try. (Use "save as" or save and know where you put it.) It's freaking amazing where they park stuff these days, and they wonder why the interface (control panel, if you can find it) is unmanageable, but then, I don't think they (microhard) even understands that, yet.

I'm getting excited and I'm not sure for the right reasons, lol.

No more editing as I go,and on to the 6th beer, and the charmer and at 98% download complete. I am excited!

That was the problem, I understand the installer now. It has created a bootable sub flash drive "image", which means, technically, I can restart my machine and it will start with Linux, if the flash drive is in the machine and I have my start up, set up, to look for it first. Doubt it.

I could walk anyone through this part, now, easy. You can also burn a cd, maybe, dvd for sure, and even install it direct on your machine. You have other questions you have to ask first. Not there yet, I have tons of space, even on my flash drive. You may not. 2 gigs, but they say 4 is better, for the flash drive approach, which is what I will attempt tonight.

Ok, next thing, so far as I know. I'm not overly worried about security, and Linux, so I'm not even going to unplug my machine from the net, before I start up this new thing. The next thing is, typically, and I think mine is, or close, it's a hard drive start up, it won't look for the flash first, which means... I have to hit a certain key during the start up screen, when the machine does it's slow ass thingy, with things you wish would hurry up... I could look in my paper work, huh?, or I could look it up on the putters web site, or google it, or I could hit a bunch of keys that I may, or may not remember from other machines I have owned, worked on, or dreamed of... I vote for the latter, first.

This is the part I always wonder about, well other then the drop down type of startup you will see, if you get lucky and poke the right button, during the right time of the start up...which is never easy to begin with to time, no, the part I wonder about is...why aren't they all the same? Why in the hell couldn't they all get together over at least one thing? You could wish me luck, but no need, I have more beer .