Monthly Archives: May 2013

iBook

Some pictures of the iBook:

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It’s been holding a charge and I’ve ordered a hard drive. It is a major task to install a hard drive in this. I’ll have to strip it down completely. But I think I can do that and it looks like it will work as soon as I install the operating system.

My ThinkPad has been good to me, but it really does need some work. This will give me something else to use. I’d like to pick up a copy of Leopard and upgrade both my old Macs. I’ll upgrade the RAM in the iBook too, as soon as I know it’s working again. Old laptops can be very useful. If all else fails, they make good writing machines.

UPDATE:
I installed the hard drive and Tiger. It’s working BUT….it had a date/time issue then wouldn’t boot at all. I did a lot of research and found that there is an issue with the graphics chip in these. So I took out the battery and let it sit all week. Took it into the office today and plugged it into power. It booted up! I’ve read that the case flexes too much on these and causes the solder to break up under that chip. So I will be using this one only on a hard flat surface. Here’s a picture:

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Finally got Lon’s computer working!

It’s taken a couple of Saturdays, but he finally has a working computer again. I was not able to get XP installed. I was using recovery disks and they just wouldn’t work. He has Ubuntu for now.

I bought the motherboard, CPU, CPU fan, and RAM from Free Geeks. Then it turned out my old power supply wouldn’t work, so I made another trip for to replace that. I couldn’t get it to boot up, so let it set for a week. The CPU fan wouldn’t seat right and the little plastic pins had splayed out and broken. Back to Free Geeks, where I found a new one, still in the package to replace that.

I went through all of it again yesterday, finally got the fans to spin. When I hooked up the monitor, I found that it wouldn’t turn on. It’s probably a power supply issue, but I decided to see what I could find second hand. I was going to check out the local second hand stores and pawn shops. That’s when I found out it was the day for the Hazel Dell parade. I couldn’t get to any of the stores I wanted to check out. So I went back to Free Geeks. I picked up a very nice Sony monitor (and a charger for the ibook project I’ll tackle next.)

When I was trying to install a version of Linux, they all kept complaining about a broken bios. A friend suggested that I use the CMOS battery from the old computer, which helped. I was able to install Ubuntu and Lon can surf the web again. I’m going to see if I can salvage anything off the old hard drive, but I suspect that the restore disk has managed to screw that up, even though it never really formated the drive or installed XP.

If I’d known it was going to be this crazy, I might have looked harder at just replacing the computer. It was a good learning experience though. I haven’t done much hardware, and I’d like to learn about newer computers. The ibook is going to be interesting. I haven’t worked on a Mac. This one doesn’t have a hard drive. To install one, you have to strip it back to the guts. I found out that the battery does seem to hold a charge and everything else seems to work. It was $30. I know it’s an obsolete computer, but I wanted one back when I worked at Charter. I think it can be useful again. Any old computer can be used for writing. This laptop needs work, so having another laptop will give me time to work on this. And I’ve been talking about volunteering at Free Geeks for awhile. They have a laptop hardware class that I’d like to take. I’ll save that for another day.

kitteh pix

Pete

Fanny

I thought it was time I took a picture of Pete, since he was recently sick. He’s definitely doing better. And I like this picture of Fanny. It’s a bit surreal. She likes to sleep on top of that sewing machine.

I’m on the last couple of days of steroids. I’ll be completely off them. I think I’m going to be fine. I’ve managed to get the house cleaned up a bit. I’ve been doing some spinnning lately so most of my recent posts have been over on the Spindlitis site. It’s been great weather recently, but I still don’t have a garden in yet.

I’m taking a couple of days off for the Fourth. We’ve talked about watching the fireworks on the beach at the Fourth, so I wanted to give us an option to go. I think we can set up the van to camp out if we want. This is still in the planning stage.

Look what I did!

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I was reading a book about interior decorating, Victorian style. They used a nice lace piece as a window edging. And I happen to have a bunch of crochet doilies and such that are not being used. So I started with this on the kitchen window. I just love it! My plan is to take several of the doilies and make an edging for some of the other windows. We don’t really use curtains here, so these really dress up the window.

 

And, for your cute kitten picture today, I give you Fanny:

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She was sitting on the bed, taking a bath and started to fall asleep. I thought the back leg sticking up in the air was pretty funny.

Oh, and in further news, my lungs are clear again. I’m just about off the steroids and was able to walk up the stairs at the clinic today. I have one more follow up in a month. Now, don’t tell my doctor, but the birds are still in the house. I believe that the major HEPA filters we have going are keeping the air clean. I still can’t really be in the bird room. I don’t want to take that risk. But this is manageable.