Strawberryland Forum

(03-06-2020, 11:40 AM)huckleberrypie Wrote: [ -> ]I thought you only got the first edition of AG Premiere.

Honestly, I didn't know which version I had.  I can't remember where I found it. Probably at a thrift store. Old software like AG Premiere are common finds.

AG Premiere 2nd Edition does run on XP, though I haven't had time to play around with it. Oddly, it requires it's own install of QuickTime 2.11 to play the intro movie even though I already have QT 4.

(03-06-2020, 12:03 PM)cpd2009 Wrote: [ -> ]

(03-06-2020, 11:40 AM)huckleberrypie Wrote: [ -> ]I thought you only got the first edition of AG Premiere.

Honestly, I didn't know which version I had.  I can't remember where I found it. Probably at a thrift store. Old software like AG Premiere are common finds.

AG Premiere 2nd Edition does run on XP, though I haven't had time to play around with it. Oddly, it requires it's own install of QuickTime 2.11 to play the intro movie even though I already have QT 4.

So it's not as rare as I once thought. And yeah, I guess Apple used some different libraries with QT2 before they stuck with a more standard codebase in later versions.

So yeah... time to address the big elephant in the room. I hate to talk about current world events since this forum is one place I use to escape from such things, but this has become a bit too big to ignore.

Coronavirus, aka COVID-19. In America, it's leading to big changes in our daily lives. The annual "March Madness" college basketball tournaments have been cancelled, Disney closed their theme parks, major pro sports leagues have suspended their seasons, and schools are closing all next week. It's an effort to prevent the spread of the virus but it's too early to tell if it will actually work. I'll avoid going into the political aspects of this pandemic to keep things from getting too melancholy.

As for me personally, the only thing I'm really worried about is my mom who is among the people who would be affected the worst if she contracted the virus. Then again, the same could happen if she got the flu or West Nile Virus. Simply put, there's a lot of fear and panic going around America at the moment to the point where people are hoarding toilet paper. Toilet paper.. What does toilet paper have to do with a new flu-like virus?? I digress...

Lately, I've been doing various things to stay safe yet keep myself from panicking. One is to avoid watching TV news. They are over sensationalizing this pandemic like everything else they get their hands on. Secondly, focus on things I need to get done such as transferring my backlog of VHS tapes to digital video. Third, indulge in some old video games be it on Daffodil or my various Nintendo systems.

And yes, I am practicing good hygiene such as washing hands thoroughly and avoiding people who are obviously sick. That may be a bit hard to do when it comes to my day job, but at least when I'm walking around my town I have enough space to keep away from sick individuals.

(03-15-2020, 02:02 PM)cpd2009 Wrote: [ -> ]As for me personally, the only thing I'm really worried about is my mom who is among the people who would be affected the worst if she contracted the virus. Then again, the same could happen if she got the flu or West Nile Virus. Simply put, there's a lot of fear and panic going around America at the moment to the point where people are hoarding toilet paper. Toilet paper.. What does toilet paper have to do with a new flu-like virus?? I digress...

Lately, I've been doing various things to stay safe yet keep myself from panicking. One is to avoid watching TV news. They are over sensationalizing this pandemic like everything else they get their hands on. Secondly, focus on things I need to get done such as transferring my backlog of VHS tapes to digital video. Third, indulge in some old video games be it on Daffodil or my various Nintendo systems.

And yes, I am practicing good hygiene such as washing hands thoroughly and avoiding people who are obviously sick. That may be a bit hard to do when it comes to my day job, but at least when I'm walking around my town I have enough space to keep away from sick individuals.

IfItBleedsItLeads and YouCanPanicNow.

Remember Y2K? That overhyped computer date-keeping issue which sent media and thus people batshit to the point of hoarding food and survival kits because civilisation at the time is fearing that everything is going to spaz out and be knocked offline? Granted, COVID-19 is an issue of serious concern and steps should be taken to curb the spread of the disease, but does the media have to make the populace run like headless chickens as if this is Resident Evil?

It also reminds me of how, in my opinion, the media sank the RMS Titanic, albeit figuratively, the iceberg being a major part of the ordeal. Newspapers of the time, eager to get the scoop, would twist and make the incident far bigger than it actually is, and it didn't help that survivor testimonies are best taken with a grain of salt. Not to mention that J. Bruce Ismay's career was utterly decimated overnight when fake news reports about him surfaced, due in part to William Randolph Hearst's machinations after he and Ismay had a rift previously. The Nazis would later popularise this vilification in their 1943 propaganda-slash-epic, which subsequent films more or less took cues from. While the Titanic does deserve to be remembered and memorialised for future generations, even enthusiasts and historians studying the sinking know all too well that there has been far worse peacetime maritime disasters, among those overlooked being the MV Doña Paz - 4,386 people were killed and only 25 survived, yet sadly few if any would memorialise the disaster over the Titanic.

It helps to stay safe and support efforts to contain this threat, but both mainstream media and charlatans such as the likes of Alex Jones and NaturalNews are twisting and inflating the issue because it sells.

How cynical.

So I got 700,000 games in the mail today...


To be truthful, there really aren't 700,000 games in this collection. I'd imagine there are really only around a 100 or so and they get the 700,000 numbers by counting the levels or variations of said games. Very misleading, and this collection managed to get endorsement by Microsoft through the discontinued "Games for Windows" banner.


I also got this. Second attempt at a better soundcard for Daffodil...


The packaging is questionable with no anti-static bag. It's just placed inside a plastic blister thing with the manual and CD-ROM stuffed inside the cardboard. It uses a VIA chipset which is a bit more rare than the common C-Media based cards you can find all over eBay. So far, it works good and even has a hardware-based synthesizer, but I can only select it with Winamp. The Windows control panel doesn't let you pick the hardware synth for some reason.

Imagine if the underlying circuitry is just as sensitive as that ill-fated Microvision handheld.

As for the so-called 700,000 Games pack, that would make the likes of NTDEC blush with their bootleg multicarts.

It's been almost a month since I acquired Rusty, the Dell Inspiron 5675. Performance has been stellar, but I do have one concern regarding the Toshiba 1TB HDD that it came with.

Every now and then, while browsing my screencaps or video files, they start going "missing", so to speak. They disappear from the file system in Explorer, and either return only after running chkdsk or rebooting the computer. Chkdsk will find the "missing" files and re-index them. After the files show up again, they aren't corrupt. There is also the one time this past weekend when I was wanting to get to the Documents folder, and the moment I clicked it, Windows gave a BSOD. (SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION). WhoCrashed didn't flag any drivers in the memory dump, but it did flag the Windows kernel as the culprit.

I don't really know what's going on here. Could the HDD be failing in an unusual way, or is this a genuine Windows 10 bug of some sort? As drive D is the data drive, I pointed the various user folders (Documents, Music, etc) to use drive D: instead of the SSD. This same issue isn't happening with the other 500gb disk I installed, which is drive F but I'll run a chkdsk on that drive later as well.

I am going to check SMART status again for drive D. If this keeps happening, I may end up replacing the Toshiba drive with a WD model to be safe.

(03-19-2020, 09:44 AM)cpd2009 Wrote: [ -> ]It's been almost a month since I acquired Rusty, the Dell Inspiron 5675. Performance has been stellar, but I do have one concern regarding the Toshiba 1TB HDD that it came with.

Every now and then, while browsing my screencaps or video files, they start going "missing", so to speak. They disappear from the file system in Explorer, and either return only after running chkdsk or rebooting the computer. Chkdsk will find the "missing" files and re-index them. After the files show up again, they aren't corrupt. There is also the one time this past weekend when I was wanting to get to the Documents folder, and the moment I clicked it, Windows gave a BSOD. (SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION). WhoCrashed didn't flag any drivers in the memory dump, but it did flag the Windows kernel as the culprit.

I don't really know what's going on here. Could the HDD be failing in an unusual way, or is this a genuine Windows 10 bug of some sort? As drive D is the data drive, I pointed the various user folders (Documents, Music, etc) to use drive D: instead of the SSD. This same issue isn't happening with the other 500gb disk I installed, which is drive F but I'll run a chkdsk on that drive later as well.

I am going to check SMART status again for drive D. If this keeps happening, I may end up replacing the Toshiba drive with a WD model to be safe.

You'd definitely want to check the SMART on that thing. If it's going knackered or whatnot, it definitely needs replacement.

SMART status says OK, according to CrystalDiskInfo, but I'll leave this here for you to look at.

---

Oh yeah... in recent news, the US government is proposing a plan to send two $1,000 checks to every American citizen to try and shore up our economy during this pandemic thing. One check would go out in April and the other in May. It's not law yet, but it appears it's likely that these checks will be a reality.

If I do get these checks, I'm not sure what to do with them. For one, I still have my day job for now but I still have the thought of potentially being laid off if things get worse. I also already got most of the desired tech upgrades I wanted, except for a laptop or tablet. Greta still works fine for basic web browsing and light gaming, but she's starting to show her age. Provided I don't have any other pressing expenses when and if these checks are sent out, I might use part of these checks to replace Greta with something more modern. I'm eyeing a Surface Pro or Surface Book, but I'll also take a look at other brands like ASUS or Dell. That Walmart Motile laptop would also be a good candidate as it is also an AMD Ryzen based system.

Even though these two big checks are nice, I'll have to spend my money more wisely given the extraordinary circumstances. That Motile laptop is looking more attractive now that I think about it....

Take SMART with a grain of salt and be vigilant about your drive. If it acts up again check the status one more time and let me know how it goes.