Fond Memories of DOS Games.

As we collectively say good-bye to the year 2012 I want to take this moment to look back, way back, to around 1992 or so.

It was a simpler time of DOS based machines, black screens, and mouseless navigation. The keyboards were chunkier and clunkier, and the floppy disks were actually floppy. I remember being in Kindergarten and having 'lab time', where all of us tiny children walked down the hallways and into the computer lab. The lights were dim, the room was warm, and the computers hummed lightly with anticipation of game time.

At school the game was always Word Muncher, a simple interactive title where a little green man with a giant mouth and legs walked around a grid and ate words or numbers that correlated to the key word or number. For example!

Aww yiss, Word Muncher. Source.

Those were good times, and I like to believe that is where I started my long and storied life as a computer lover.

When I was in second grade my mom bought our first family computer, and I was floored. I thought it was the best thing in the world, and I was so proud to have a computer at the house. MY house. After school I got to run home and play with it. And you know what I played?

Motha 'effin' Mario Teaches Typing. Source.

Mario Teaches Typing is the party responsible for the typist that I am today. In my prime I could do 77 wpm with virtually no errors. It's a fact that I am perhaps too proud of.

We didn't have internet until I was in fifth or sixth grade, and then it was AOL dial up and a nightmare. All years leading up to that were DOS based gaming bliss. Really just Mario Teaches Typing on Windows 95. My mom still has the box and all install items for it, too. The box is enormous and made of the heftiest cardboard that ever existed. It contains two options depending on your needs: five inch floppies, and three and a half inch floppies. Just hysterical.

What are your best DOS based memories?

-MJ

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Down the (apple) Rabbit Hole.

You'll recall that on Wednesday I announced the arrival of my new Macbook Pro and my subsequent desire to load it up with Fallout 3. I mused over the possibility of a dual boot setup, but then my friend suggested I install Wine. So I headed over and followed these instructions (which seemed simple enough, if not lengthy) and I felt positive that I was on my way to a legitimate path of playing a Steam purchased copy of Fallout 3.

Spoiler alert: this story doesn't have a happy ending.

Close to the end of the day on Christmas I set about to downloading my game. I hopped onto Steam and moved forward with the purchase, deciding I'd download it just to be "on the ball" and then I'd install Wine later. It turns out you can't do that! Steam for OSX doesn't like it when you try to download a PC title. With a shrug and a sigh it became apparent that I'd better start with Wine right away.

The first of many status updates announcing my gung-ho intentions.

Commence an hour or four of installing XCode, X11, a Java Development Package, MacPorts, a quick tutorial on using the Terminal, and then Wine, and I was starting to feel pretty optimistic. With the exception of a few minor user error issues everything was going quite smoothly. Wine functioned as it should have and I was able to nab the Windows version of Steam and get my copy of Fallout 3 into an "imaginary" Program Files folder. Well, not imaginary, but whatever on Earth it is that Wine does to interpolate Windows files as readable for a Mac.

I was feeling really good, you know? Savvy and smart. I was entering command lines into the Terminal and making windows open and what-not. On top of the computer world, I was! 

On top of the world, but still just a touch confused.

Things began to fall apart when I went to actually install the game. A lot of dialogue boxes popped up and everything went well at first. When it became time to install the .NET component, though, I thought my computer might blow up in angry protest. It threw multiple (and repeated) violent errors warning missing components and crashing files and error reports before finally exiting out in a huff of smoke and leaving me staring surprised at the innocuous open Steam window.

After a few looks around online for solutions I found the missing DLL components that it so desperately needed (according to the Terminal log, anyway), but I was met with disappointing results. At this point I had sort of coded myself into a corner and I really no longer knew what was installed and what I was missing. So...

First off, please forgive that typo. I was extremely tired and apparently sort of incoherent. I had stayed up until around 1:30 trying in vain to produce satisfactory results, but when it became apparent that I'd have to start over I decided to turn in for the night. I then proceeded to lay awake until around 3:00, just, thinking about the errors and of possible solutions. I woke up at 7:00 sharp and found that I was absolutely wired for some reason, and that reason was desperation to get back on my laptop and make the frigging game work.

So on hardly four hours of sleep I set back to work. I found a second tutorial with a different set of instructions, and I worked with a clean slate and crossed fingers that the planets would align and the computer gods would have mercy on my Fallout deprived soul. 

Sadly, today was not my day. After conceding defeat I fell back into bed and slept for three hours.  

Anyone have a copy of Windows 7 they're not going to use?

-MJ

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Technological Disappointments.

Or, how my Christmas morning plans were foiled by PC only titles.

My mother listened to my constant woes and complaints over the past few months regarding my ancient macbook, and ended up getting me a new macbook pro (with retina display!) for Christmas. Sadly(?) I knew about this marvelous gift because my mother lacks sufficient knowledge on what makes a good computer, but also because she didn't know my specific needs. Somewhat indifferent to the lack of a surprise, I ordered it and then sat with my hands in my lap waiting patiently for Christmas morning.

Pictured above: one of the many things that eventually fell into my lap.

I had grand plans for holiday gaming, you see. Until last year I was never much for computer gaming, just Minecraft really, but then I started Fallout 3 and Skyrim files on a friend's computer and, well, I've decided that I like the keyboard and mouse setup quite a bit.

My sister and her family weren't set to arrive until around noon or one o'clock Christmas Day, which left my mother and me with plenty of time to drink mimosas while watching the Doctor Who Christmas special (me, not her), and setting up my new macbook. I decided that the first order of business would be grabbing Steam and installing Fallout 3. Because nothing screams 'Christmas' like a post apocalyptic United States of America.

Something unrelated that screams 'Christmas': a ten week old springer spaniel mutt 

who wants to get his sleep on in your lap. You just say yes.

For some reason I had it in my head that Fallout 3 was PC/Mac, but all signs online point to it being PC only. Color me devastated. I sat melancholy on the couch, sipping my mimosa and watching the snow fall (all the while quite paranoid of sentient snowmen).

I have come to really enjoy the functionality of the macbook, and I have zero desire to switch to a Windows based machine in the near future. Why must companies punish me so? I've considered a Windows desktop to accompany my macbook for the sake of increased ease of access in software scenarios such as this, but no. I don't imagine that will happen.

Perhaps a dual boot is in my future.

In the meantime, I'll cry quietly while clutching my new Dalek plushie to my chest. Isn't that what you'd do with yours?

-MJ

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To Apple, With Confusion. Why Are You Update Blocking Me?

In fall of 2008 I acquired my Macbook and it was rather love at first sight. Fast forward (almost) exactly four years later and the love goggles have worn out. This thing is slow, so slow, and has a passion for locking up during minimal web-surfing sessions. I try to keep very little stored on the hard drive (I use an external for most things) and I've done a RAM upgrade before.

And then my computer was lighting fast! ...if only. [source/source]

While a buggy computer is certainly cause for gripe, it's not exactly a rock and a hard place situation. However, with Apple's insistence on releasing an updated OS about once a year, my basic functionality has gone nearly out the window. The majority of programs that I'd like to use require at least 10.6, and sadly my computer is running 10.5.8. In my Windows user mindset I think, "No problem. Just grab a more recent version of the OS and off I go", but Apple has other plans.

I prefer both Mac and Windows. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, and each offer different types of satisfaction and use. For instance I love being able to dig into a Windows machine to fix a problem. With Macs, I love that all hardware works seamlessly together without various company's incompatibility concerns. I absolutely prefer the price point of a Windows machine, and I cannot ignore the visual appeal of Apple products. Apple haters be damned, they are undeniably visionaries.

So shiny. So sleek. [source]

I find myself quite trapped with my Macbook though, given my "ancient" OSX version. I'd love to pop onto the Apple website, purchase Mountain Lion and solve my program compatibility issues. But, no. Apple doesn't want to make it that simple. Mountain Lion is purchasable online only through the Mac App Store. The Mac App Store does not exist in 10.5.8. I need OSX 10.6.6, an update of Snow Leopard, which cannot be purchased from Apple online. That's right, the software necessary to run Mountain Lion is not available on the Apple website.

Now, I find myself asking, nearly yelling with passion, why Apple would prevent me from obtaining an update. This situation isn't exactly user experience at its finest. Additionally, even if I were to get my anxious hands on a disc version of Mountain Lion (OSX 10.8), it would not install on my system. Why, you ask? Because one of the the requirements of 10.8 is that the computer already be running 10.6. It's a vicious circle.

 This picture should have been a circle graph that I made, but I haven't  reinstalled all 

of my programs since wiping my machine a few days ago, so I'm improvising here!

[source]

I believe that I should be able to get a few more good years out of this laptop, and I also believe that Apple should facilitate that. I'd love to know why Snow Leopard is no longer obtainable through the great wide internets. I'm willing to pay for the update, for goodness sake! And, as evidenced by multiple requests for help via Google search, so are many others who are so out of the loop* as to still be running 10.5.8.

Dear Internet, what would you suggest? Do I simply need to deal with the "Genius" bar at an Apple store? What if they laugh at my early 2008 body? I don't think I can handle the technological humiliation.

-MJ

*This is a joke directed at Apple, not users of 10.5.8. They must think that we're out of the loop or computer challenged for waiting "so long" to upgrade.

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Exerting great power at work.

I had a difficult time deciding if this entry should go here, or in my photo blog. Technically, the majority of what I'm going to write about relates directly to my photography job here in Ireland. However, I've done absolutely zero photography at the studio; I've been doing all computer/IT work. With that in mind, I figured that the information would be more relevant here in geek central.

The photographer took me on as a studio assistant with power over digital asset management (hereafter referred to as DAM) and anything else to do with organization and internal structuring. I'm not sure my photography skills were really important after he learned that I spent my senior year at Evergreen learning DAM. I'm not an expert by any means, a year is not a long time, but I do pretty well and it's more knowledge than a lot of other people have.

It's good to have a system. Most people don't.

Initially I was set to work designing wedding albums on the oh-so-fabulous-to-use tablet PC. It quickly became apparent that I wasn't going to get any internal restructuring done during business hours. With the help and encouragement of Andrew, (I was nervous to demand certain work hours) I told my boss that I needed to change my schedule so I could work after hours on the computers.

This proved to be quite successful, and next thing I knew I was working 2-8! It's nice to have those two hours of quiet after the studio close at six, just the computers and me.

There are three machines and they are all old and bogged down. Years of pictures that didn't need to be on the hard drives, old programs, downloads, just cobwebs strung through the data. So, I started with the tablet PC and set to comparing the photos on the C drive to the photos on the backup drives to make sure everything was stored properly.

I'm going to use this moment to talk about how I don't really care for Picasa. There's no option to store photos in their original location without duplicating them. This infuriates me. What a waste of space! And yes, the files can be manually deleted, but then that's just a waste of time. Aperture isn't the perfect program but at least it gives me the option to store the photos in their original location AND not duplicate them so I'm not getting doubles all over my freaking hard drive! GAH!

I spend a lot of time in there like that.

OK, so with that aside, the computer was full of weddings and family shoots because the boss likes Picasa and no one (until now) deletes the projects once they're finished. So yeah, lots of old photos just chillin' and taking up space on the C drives. Annoying.

Right as I was ready to reinstall Windows and wipe that sucker clean, the computer started to give me a peculiar error on startup. Right after the BIOS screen it shows a 'floppy diskette seek error' error. F1 to continue or F2 to enter setup. I got all up in that BIOS and looked up so many FAQs and tutorials and nothing that I tried fixed the problem. All of the final signs point to hard drive failure. I let everyone in the studio know, so it's in their hands now since I'm leaving in less than two weeks.

The Windows install went smoothly, and after installing the relevant drivers we were good to go. I sealed it up with an anti-virus and ad-aware program and reconnected all of the hard drives. Even though I expected to be doing a little bit of photography, I'm not disappointed with my experience. I love working with computers and I've learned a great deal about networking and troubleshooting. Now that I know how to do it it is very simple, but before I got to the studio I didn't know how to share a drive or map a drive on a computer network. Easy peasy at this point! :D

My adventures have brought me through to completion on the second of three computers in the studio. That one took a lot longer to compare and copy pictures; the hard drive was super full. It's running better now, but it still likes to restart randomly. No error, no warning, no 'wtf I encountered an error lol wanna go to safe mode?' upon turning back on. I wondered if it was a bad file or something, but after wiping it and it still does it I'm going to go ahead and say it's a hardware problem. Again, I let everyone in the studio know. Hopefully they can get someone in to pinpoint the issue so the whole computer doesn't come crashing down.

Not to mention the additional 45 minutes required to 'setup' Windows.

On Friday I finished clearing off the third and final computer. It is schedule for reinstall on Monday, mwahaha. After that's done I'm going to write up instructions as concisely as possible so other people can do the reinstalls when necessary. I didn't write anything down while I wiped the tablet pc, but I wrote step by step instructions as I was wiping the second computer. At this point they just need to be refined and carefully worded so even people that know nothing can do this. I'm doing all I can to make sure the systems function well after I leave because they were in a sore state when I arrived.

I think it was Wednesday that we experienced a special problem. The computers are all outfitted with multi-size card readers, seeing as it's a photography studio. The cameras all take CF cards, just for reference. We discovered that someone (fingers point to the previous student work experience that we had in) had jammed a CF card in past the receiving pins and the card had fallen down into the card reader casing.

See that bottom left opening? Yup, just... fell right down in there. Not supposed to do that.

We call that a problem.

Fortunately I am a skilled and brilliant person (and oh so modest too), so I was able to remove the card reader from the tower and retrieve the CF card. My boss was mighty impressed with me, but then again he was ready to start poking at the tower with a knife while it was still on and plugged in. We were good though: I turned it off, removed the side, disconnected the card reader unit, located a tiny screwdriver from the construction workers outside (it is so wacky at the studio), took off the top and grabbed the card. I wish I had taken a photo of my handiwork! It felt good knowing what I was doing, and it was all the better when the computer turned back on and the card reader still worked. Ha!

Well I think that's it for now. Just know that I'm ass deep in computer problems at work and next week I'll be talking about video games again. Yay!

-Miranda

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