I show you mine, you show me yours

I knew my title post would sound so nasty but I’m so sorry for that. I just want to share my post what kind of computer that I’m using and I have been curious what other people have. Hmm, this is not a battle of the pc or some sort just a sharing moment for all of us; maybe for some they just want to know “that’s it, there’s no big deal” and in my case I just want to be aware of the stories behind those computer how people actually used it, how they benefit from selecting a particular brand and how their computers stand the test of time. Isn’t great? So we can generate a continuous awareness which brand is good and gone bad based on our own experiences and the beauty of this is that we don’t have to rely on particular reviews found on the net.

Well, Lemme tell you my story, it was in 2002 when I decided to put up my small scale internet café – so I went from a local computer store and bought several half identical brands for each parts that I preferred to use “of course not the best brand and the fastest in its class during that time” my selections were based on my limited budget so I ended up have these parts below and paid that over-the-counter:

8x        AMD AthlonXP 1700+ processors

8x        Cold Master HSF

8x        Asus A7V266-M Motherboards (socket A, built-in audio)

4x        PQI 128mb DDR 266

4x        Kingston 128mb DDR 266

8x        Inno3D MX400 64mb/64bit Video cards

4x        Seagate 20GB 5400rpm (ST320014A)

4x        Maxtor 10GB 5400rpm (2B010H1)

8x        CNET Pro200 10/100 Lancard/NIC

8x        PPC mouse ball (Free)

8x        PPC keyboard (Free)

8x        PPC speakers (not FREE)

8x        15” AOC 5en CRT  

8x        PPC Tower casing /w PCC PSU 300w

8x        Diamond Evolution 300w AVR (plastic type casing)

7x        Windows 98se retail edition w/ COA sticker

1x        Windows XP home retail edition /w COA sticker

1x        Sony FDD 3.5” 1.44mb

1x        Asus 52x CD-Rom

1x        16 port CNET 10/100 Switch Hub

1x        Box UTP-CAT5 (generic)

1x        Generic Network Cable Tester

1x        Crimping Tool (generic)

1x        Artic Silver Heat Spreader

Obviously, all the parts are made in China ‘So, China Rules! LOL’ except for the processor I think that was made in Malaysia. Anyway, after all that tiring shopping I went home and rested for a couples of hours; but after that I started put them into pieces (hardware assembly – a no brainier task) ‘ehem I’m a business management grad -- no formal training or whatsoever just had an experience wrecking my old IBM XT clone PC with NEC V20 processor 8mhz turbo mode wow! What a PC and a Pentium 3 MMX166mhz wow again, and by reading some ebooks and printed books about computer carpentry LOL’.

So, after I had done with my first task, I went to the software side so basically it took me a number of hours before completing all the necessary software installed from operating system, drivers, and games of course. Though it wasn’t the hardest part; I felt so wasted from “putting on” and “pulling off” that CD drive from one pc to the other, whew! What an experience having just a single CD drive ‘How I wish I designed my pre-builder installation software and a BOOT ROM for my NIC so I can access all the necessary installation software at one point on the network, but my bad I don’t have enough resources to do that at that time.’ But it paid off I had done everything and all my computers were up and running on the next morning; sleepless night took me laid my back at the couch.

I was snoring “zzzzZZZZzzzzZZZZzzzzZZZZ” while I’m sleeping that’s what my wife said (Zen is beautiful and sexy…), so basically I skipped my lunch on that day, in exchange for a total recharge from exhausting long hours of working in the assembly line ‘LOL’. I’m up finally! But it was dinner time, so I sat down and enjoyed every single menu that was prepared for me, there’s a sizzling steak, a Shanghai lobster meat, a martini glass filled with coke, three cups of Chinese fried rice, a crispy crab, and finally a mouth watering moisture chocolate cake. I must confess I really love those meals and how I wish consumed them all before my wife woke me up for the real dinner.

Oh Boy! I was only dreaming…

So, after taking my dinner I began working with network cabling that took me an hour completing the task from measuring and cutting those UTP-5 cables and crimping up those RJ-45 boots (thanks to the internet and I had printed those cabling guide and P2P networking ahead of time). It’s been rewarding in my part that it only cost me little time to read and comprehend every bit of information I had found on the internet “cool there’s no need for an extra bucks for books or to hire tech people”. 

All computers and cables were sat on its place; so, I began testing for network connectivity. Poof it works! What I did is I pre-configured all my pc to have static IP address from 192.168.0.1…192.168.0.9 and subnet 255.255.255.0 (thanks again to windows help file for small home networking) it works! After testing using ping for each network; I began running counter strike patch to 1.3 at that time and I sat on my WINXP machine to host the de_dust map. I basically configured my machine for 8 players so I could test its connectivity for the other machine to connect on the host machine. Then one by one I tested running counter strike on each machine and tried connecting on the host machine.

It turned out successful for its connectivity. But, there’s a drawback the game doesn’t gone well; because there’s a lag during game play, so I decided to change counter strike’s default graphic engine which is DIRECTX into OPENGL then I invited some kids including my daughter and my nephew for a LAN PARTY. So we played for nearly an hour and the graphics turn out well with no lag until someone used a smoke grenade that made the game lag again. But we continued playing the game until my daughter used a sniper gun in which she claimed the cross site is not accurate moving along with the mouse. So we continued again and at least we discovered graphics issues during our game play. It’s nearly two hours when I decided to conclude the game for the dry run.

After that game I was thinking that graphics lag is not related to software itself; I thought it could be more in my pc. So, I picked one motherboard manual and tried reading for some configuration information. Upon reading through the manual; I had seen a configuration pertaining to processor speed. So, what I did is I boot up my pc again to check my processor speed in my bios settings. It’s funny my processor aren’t configured to use its maximum speed at 1476mhz; it was configured at 1100mhz a difference of 376mhz unused resources for my processor. It’s a 25.5% additional processing speed for my processor if I utilize to run at 1476ghz (correct me if I’m wrong because I wasn’t really good with math, that is why I gave up my course in electronic communication engineering after one and a half year of stay with that study; it sucks it made me bored for 1 ½ year with no hands-on with engineering instrumentation and electronics introduction or whatsoever; what I had is a T-square and steadler and rotring stuff whoosh I’m not an architect student. LOL).

The Spirit Lives On…

It was in the mid-eighties, when new wave music hit in manila. It sounds too old though, but it was a great experience to me that I was actually such a fanatic to that music genre. I can still recall a lot of memories tuning-in on DW-XB102.7 fm on my radio dial—a long gone radio station in the Philippines who started it all and made new wave music so popular among the youth of that era.

WXB102 was the biggest influential icon for my musical inclination to new wave music and of course with a taste of fashion as well, I won’t forget those haircut styles and mode of dressing down to my bla-bla shoes that I wore in every gig that XB had. After two decades of hibernation, who would think that same old station would resurrect again?

Well, it’s good to be true! Thanks to Michael Sutton of Sutton Records USA, who made all this possible. WXB102 is live again as it is used to be, broadcasting globally over the internet.

Viva, Hooray! To all XBnian who aren’t dead yet. Enjoy listening to the station that dares to be different  WXB102—listen as well to XB DJ’s who do the spin once again as they bring back the spirit of the true new wave music.