Blake’s Blog

I have not been around many of my local online community’s recently do to major computer issues I have been suffering through.

In my last post I made you all aware that I had ordered a new bare bones kit from TigerDirect.ca. Well I received all the parts, put it together, turned it on… install Windows XP Pro… Install drivers then bam… random reboot. So I ran it for about a week. Very fast bur random reboots. I ran the great utility "Dr Watson" that’s built into Windows to see what was going on. Checking through logs I found that every reboot was caused by the nVidea driver taking a dump.

My first thought was the video cards so I took on of the XFX nVidea 8400 GS’s out. Again, still the same problem. So then my second thought was RAM… Took 3GB of the OCZ RAM out. Still same issue. Last thought was power supply… changed that… still same issue.

My calm father called MSI and gave them the situation of what was going on. They gave us a tag number and we shipped the board back.

A week later we were starting to get concerned about where the board had gone because we had herd nothing from MSI. That Friday a package showed up from MSI with a brand new mother board.

Again, hooked it up, installed Windows XP… still same problem.

Well I was pissed by this point. (Who wouldn’t be)

So me and my dad were talking about the MSI mother board. All of our computers we have ever built we always used AMD processor, ASUS mother boards and ATI graphics cards. Having a MSI mother board and nVidea graphics cards was a new realm but we figured it wouldn’t be a big deal. Every thing pointed back to the motherboard.

We order a nice ASUS N2M-SLI from ShadowTech Computer Services. (There located a few blocks away from my house) The next day the motherboard was in and still the same problem but this time when we went to install Window s we would get a memory flow error… something witched I have never seen before. This time we called up our friend Tim from ShadowTech and asked him about the problem.

Tim nicely tolled us that OCZ RAM needs to have voltage bumped up for it to run stable. Sure enough, bumped up the voltage and away it went. 4GB of RAM… AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5400+ 2.81 GHz and XFX 8400+ GS running software SLI.

Not bad for a months worth of screwing around… Now I just need to find where the Christmas video’s went

I know it has been a while since I communicated with some of you and I bet your wondering where I have been. I guess it’s time to fill you in. Just after Christmas I lost the love of my life to someone else. (Nice way of saying merry Christmas and Happy 3 year anniversary) Same night I had a nice chat with every ones most loved MyBB developer, Tiki.

I guess he didn’t like my comment about how MyBB Games new about the security vulnerability before MyBB made us aware. So after the security vulnerability was fixed we had a nice little chat on IRC. I’ll sum it up for you. Basically he wanted someone to feel sorry for him for the fact that he stayed up until 2:00AM fixing the problem and trying to get a hold of Chris? And then he had to deal with me? Well… He tolled me he expected more from me as a MyBB user and a long time member of the forums.

The next day (still a little pissed) I have PM waiting for me from DennisTT. He was politely telling me that my comment was out of line (which I think it was). I had no problem with this but it’s the fact that Tiki tolled me the same fucking thing just the night before. Great communications guys!!!!

Well guess what…. I expected more from MyBB. I have been there since 2003 (I think) I was part of the MyBB 1.2 Beta (witch was fun) but the 1.4 beta me and a few other locals were “for gotten” in the whole selection process. No biggy we still got it but that beta round was over.

I find MyBB’s team is kinda of a two man show now. It seems like allot of the developers and mod’s are leaving because of “other things in there lives” but thats not the case. In most cases it seems to be one person causing most of the issue between staff. (I will not mention any names) I think cretin individuals think they might almost own the place. Kind of like a “teachers pet” that won’t flake off.

So what happen to MyBB Games you ask? Well after a great post made about this whole thing, the whole domain is now for sale. Click here for more details.

A while ago I was in communication with Mike (Complicated) and I am now helping the Imperial BB project. Currently Version 1 is being worked on and is in private beta. The next version is looking good. You can check out screen shots here. If you are interested in the project please register on our forums and leave your suggestions. New members are always welcome! We won’t tell you to “use search before posting”.

Anyways thats whats going on right now. When the next version of Imperial BB is released I will be changing the board here over to it, then I will be creating some video tutorials on different parts of the software and operating it etc.

So thats whats new with me. I will post more now I do have allot more time on my hands so expect more soon.

Have a good one!

Well yesterday my poor old AMD 3500+ Asus AV8 - Delux motherboard gave up the ghost and died. Me and it were together for 5 greatfull years but now it has moved onto a better place.

So it’s replacment is going to be a bare bones kit from Tigerdirect. Click here for more details. It’s not the best thing ever but it will do exactly what I need it to do.

In the mean time I’m using a AMD Duron 1Ghz with 256 MB of ram running Kubuntu. I have to say. It sucks really bad.

As most of you know I am fluent in both Windows and Linux. Yesterday in the #mybb IRC channel, tension was tight between us Linux people and the Windows fan boy Matt (owner of msubuntu who will be sued when the site is launched) A good friend of myn, DrPoodle had had it with Matt. So with the help of MiNT we started to produce a list of all the reasons why Linux was better then windows. For any of you Windows fan boys… eat this…

1) Linux is free.
2) Linux is faster (another IRC user, tmhai, was astounded earlier today at how his laptop booted in under 30 seconds with Ubuntu, compared to the 30 minutes it took Windows to boot on it).
3) Linux is Open Source (which means bugs and security holes are found and fixed quicker).
4) With Linux, you own your Operating System. With Microsoft Windows, you don’t actually “own” the Operating System, you simply have a license that says you can use it. Every installation of Windows is owned by Microsoft.
5) Linux has better support. This is debatable, but there are a lot of community forums out there, and usually errors in Linux are much more readable than Windows errors, which leads to quicker solutions.
6) Linux has package managers. Most distros come with some form of package manager, a utility that installs safe and secure programs, and then updates them automatically.
7) Linux has daily updates. Most distros release daily updates of core files, as well as updates for programs.
Linux has releases every 6 months. Most distros release their next version every 6 months without fail. So instead of waiting an uncertain amount of time for the next Windows release, you know exactly when the next version of your OS will be out.
.. To read all the reasons, click Here.

If any of you Windows people have anything that could possibly have a case against Linux. I ask you to sign up on my forums and post your reasoning.

Sorry it’s so late but I finally got the snow up on the site. Just wanted to wish every one a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday. See you all in the new year.