FTP

I have been having problems with Leech FTP for a while now, but continued using it anyway. There were random error messages, random disconnects, and at times it would just get stuck on an upload, download, or directory switch. The reason I continued to use it was that it was so simple and basic; I don’t need a lot of beneficial features crap cluttering it up. I want to upload and download files, I will handle all editing on machine. Yesterday I couldn’t get Leech to connect at all, so I had to find something else. What I ended up with is Core FTP. Core FTP has roughly the same minimal features, but with the bonus of not locking up at random intervals. An additional bonus is that it automatically refreshes the remote directory on upload, that’s something that I always wished Leech did. It occurs to me that rather Continue reading FTP

Shower faucets aren’t really finger tight

I have been having problems with the faucet in my shower for about six months now. I have neglected to fix it because I absolutely knew that I was going to encounter all kinds of problems when I tried to fix it, and of course I was right. The problem with the shower is a bit odd, really. For reasons unknown the hot water side will gain and lose pressure seemingly at random. It could go for 2 weeks without having a problem, it could go for 2 weeks without working properly. I had tried disconnecting the hot water line and just blowing water through it without success, so I needed to try something else. The plan was to try to just pull the control lever and clean the fittings inside of that; possibly replace a couple of the rubber seats. Of course this all went to hell the second Continue reading Shower faucets aren’t really finger tight

Help my wife make money for breast cancer

Every year my wife does the annual Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk here in Phoenix. Her mother passed away from breast cancer a few years ago, so it is something that she feels pretty strongly about. I also like the ta-ta’s, but my job keeps me from making the walk; I settle for a nominal donation to her. She is doing her fund raising exclusively online this year, and I wanted to pass that link on to some people at work, unfortunately the web address to make a donation to her is: “http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/MakingStridesAgainstBreastCancer/MSABCFY10GreatWest?px=2331810&pg=personal&fr_id=19864”. Since I know that some people will have to actually write the link down, I decided I would just throw a link to it up here, ’cause shadowtin.com is easier to remember than http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/MakingStridesAgainstBreastCancer/MSABCFY10GreatWest?px=2331810&pg=personal&fr_id=19864. So here is that difficult to copy and paste link in a handy, clickable format. Please go and donate…Or I curse you Continue reading Help my wife make money for breast cancer

PC cooling

After seeing the heat issues that come from trying to run a 3d game on a laptop -even a laptop that has plenty of muscle to run such a game- I had to start rethinking the issue. I had always made the assumption that any pre-assembled machine that you buy off the shelf would come with adequate hardware to keep it within normal operational temperature. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I still happen to have about a half a dozen old pc’s within thirty yards of the chair that I am sitting in now (I actually just gave two systems to my brother-in-law, who, not being a gamer, was more than happy with 1.5 year old stuff). I took a minute to look inside them specifically for fans and was surprised to find none. The only fans on any of the boxes I have around me are on the Continue reading PC cooling

Installing case fans (aka Cutting into the tower)

I got up this morning and jumped into the case fan install project. It seems to have gone pretty smoothly; the pc is back up and running and the fan control is operating all of the fans. There were a couple of setbacks, but nothing major, I will go into them in a minute. I consider myself to have a moderate knowledge of computer hardware, and that was more than sufficient for this job. I also consider myself to be relatively skilled in the all-purpose-handyman type skills necessary for the install, but honestly it was easy enough that I would expect someone with little or no skill or knowledge on either subject would be able to complete this. From powering down the pc to having it back up and running took me roughly two hours. I could have done it quicker, but I was stopping to take pictures, and I Continue reading Installing case fans (aka Cutting into the tower)

PC and music

My recent small flurry of website related activity seems to have stopped almost as quickly as it started. I got the pages that I wanted to reformatted, and started on a couple of the features that I had been thinking about for a while, and then my Laptop crashed. There are two extremely annoying aspects to the Laptop crash. The first is that it was just after we got back from vacation, and aside from the photos that I have posted on the Vacation Photos page (in vastly reduced size and quality), I had no backups of the images that I lost. A total of roughly 300 pictures, from vacation photos to pets, just gone. Damn it. The other annoying aspect was the loss of all the programs I use for the website: Leech FTP, Screen Hunter (image saving program, saves pictures to file with a click of keyboard button), Continue reading PC and music