In December 2002 I splurged and bought my first DVD burner: a Sony DRX-500UL. I paid $430 for the external unit, which burned DVDs at a whopping 2X (30 minutes per disc). At the time, a war of formats was brewing between DVD-R (DVD “minus” R) and DVD+R (DVD “plus” R). The Sony was one of the first I found… read entire post
Category Archives: IBM PC
300 Keyboards
I’ve scanned in 99% of my old photographs, but every now and then I run across one that slipped through the cracks. This is one of those.
I’ve told this story before, but right around the year 2000, a co-worker of mine and I attended a local auction for a computer store that was going out of business. At the… read entire post
DJ Mix Pro
To provide the music for my niece’s wedding, I used a program called DJ Mix Pro. It’s not a well known program, but it’s really good at what it does (and really affordable), so I thought I would mention it.
Talented disc jockeys are able to take two songs, match their speed (measured in Beats Per Minute, or BPM), and… read entire post
Bring out your Dead (DOS Machine)
Like most of you, I spent several hours this weekend bringing an old dead DOS computer back to life.
(Wait. You guys didn’t do that this weekend, too? Man, you missed OUT!)
I bought this old desktop machine years ago at a thrift store for (I think) five bucks. The last time I used it was to transfer my old… read entire post
Mortal Kombat Memories
This week’s release of the latest Mortal Kombat game (MK X) caused me to reflect on my own memories of the Mortal Kombat franchise.
I don’t actually remember the first time I saw Mortal Kombat in an arcade, which is a terrible way to start an article about my memories of Mortal Kombat.
I do however remember the launch of… read entire post
Happy 21st Birthday, Doom!
I didn’t have a phone line in the first apartment I lived in, which cut my BBS/modeming habit when I moved in drastically down from “many hours a day” to “nothing” very quickly. In regards to computers, it was a transitional time for me. When I first moved into that apartment, my primary computer was a Commodore 64. When I… read entire post
PC Games For Sale: 40 Cents Each
I had heard of the website Bundle-in-a-Box before, but never really looked into it until one of my friends Robb Sherwin had one of his games added to a bundle. What Bundle-in-a-Box does is group several games together and allow their customers to pay whatever price they think the bundle is worth. The games are downloadable and DRM-free so you… read entire post
MDoS (Microwave Denial of Service)
I began experiencing intermittent internet problems the first week we moved into our new home (a little over a year ago). I’d be chugging along, reading Facebook or watching a movie online, and suddenly everything would stop. I tried all the easy things like changing wireless channels, moving my router, and resetting/rebooting everything, but nothing seemed to help. To make… read entire post
Fixing Scratched CDs with Toothpaste
This was part of a larger blog post that took a different direction so I split this little tidbit out. Did you know you can fix many scratched CDs with white toothpaste? I’ve tried it out of desperation a couple of times with success both times. Not only does the toothpaste fix scratches, it also prevents them from getting cavities… read entire post
A New Day, A New RAID
A few years ago when I decided to build my first data storage RAID for the house, I didn’t have enough room in my server’s case to add four additional hard drives … so I went out to the garage, pulled one of my old computer cases off the shelf, and added four hard drives to it. I then bought… read entire post