eighthphase | Entries tagged with computer stuff

It's really annoying leaving the house when it's 60 degrees outside and staying out until it's 82. I mean, how do you dress for that? (I know how you dress for that, you wear layers. It's still really annoying.)

I wonder how they test the battery life of laptop batteries. For example, mine is supposed to have a battery life of "up to five hours." I used it yesterday with all the power-saving features I could possibly enable. It lasted two and a half hours. That's not good. (Of course, my laptop is a huge monstrosity... so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.) Wish I had a netbook. Not to replace this thing! Just to add to it. (My dad doesn't understand this, of course: "You have a computer, you don't need another one." Maybe I don't. But it would certainly be extremely useful.)

Anyway, I've got a Girl Scouts meeting later today, and naturally nobody's responding to messages about it (this is normal, if immensely annoying), and I need to start getting ready for class, since I have to get my brother out of bed to drive me to school and I don't want to be late. (Even if my first class is public speaking and I'd love to not show up, except that then I'd get dropped and I actually kind of need that class.)

Mass Effect: if at first it doesn't work, try again with a smaller resolution.

Last night I had to race to the Conduit. I tried three times and failed each time. Surely this can't be right! I raged. Then today I watched some videos of people doing the exact same thing and realised something... their Mako moved faster than mine. Now, I knew that the game lagged a little when I play - I don't get accurate lip-synch, that kind of thing. But I didn't think it lagged all that badly.

Then I loaded my last save and played in windowed mode at the smallest resolution. (Hey, it worked for Feros!) Wouldn't you know it, through the Conduit with seven seconds to spare! Autosave on the Citadel, and... back to normal resolution for me.

In completely unrelated news, I didn't expect physics class to come back and bite me in the ass, but it has. Today we got our check-out forms, which come with a handy little list of all the books you have checked out to your name - if you don't turn them in, you don't walk. The AP Gov book, Econ book, and precal book I expected.

The physics book I did not expect.

Now, it turns out that what happened was, when we turned our physics books in to our teacher at the end of the last term, he didn't check them in like he was supposed to, and instead just distributed them out to his next class. So basically everybody in my physics class has overdue physics books to their name and doesn't know who's running around with them. And the teacher is no help at all - a friend in the same boat went and asked him about it, only to be told, "Well, you can come back tomorrow and look through the books to find yours, I guess." Which is not only supremely unhelpful, but also only works if nobody else has the book - and somebody probably does.

I'll put up a plea on facebook tonight, though I expect nothing will come from it.

THIS JUST IN: Research shows cell phones may cause cancer. This puts them in the same category as coffee. (And DDT, but cell phones = pesticide is not as amusing to me as cell phones = coffee. This may be because I like both cell phones and coffee, but not pesticide.)

So this weekend, I was going through my picture folders and deleting all the really old stuff. Well, this morning I found out that I ended up deleting a folder I actually needed. D: Now I'm going through with one of those undelete programs looking for it so I can, you know, undelete it. I'm not sure how long that's going to take, though. /:

I downloaded Bring Down The Sky yesterday! Today I started on that mission. (There's just something about the entire name of it that sounds kind of poetic; I can't really explain.) I want to get Pinnacle Station, as well, but I've got the usual problems with acquiring that. I know I'm getting ME2 sometime in June; I was going to get the special edition, but now I think I might just get the regular one plus all the dlc. I don't really approve of dlc, but I want it anyway!

Actually that's a lie. I don't mind dlc when it's free. I kind of have a problem when it isn't, though. I mean, you've already paid for the game, so why do you have to pay for more game in your game? (Capitalism, yes, I know.) Still, more Mass Effect is something I can definitely get behind.

It's all Jacob's and Zach's fault. They convinced me to buy it. They're the ones who got me hooked.

Additionally, I think I'm the bane of the hardcore PC gamer. I really, really don't understand all the fancy computer talk - I just don't. Yesterday I learned that I'm an idiot for trying to play serious games on my laptop at all! I also learned a bit about video cards, namely that I don't have one. I have an integrated chipset, not a dedicated video card. Apparently this is a bad thing and I should feel bad. I don't, of course, since I didn't buy this computer to play games and am simply chalking the fact that it can up to a bonus. I do plan on seeing if I can upgrade to an actual video card at some point, though, because I'm a little worried about not being able to run Mass Effect 3. (It all comes back to that, it seems.)

Current Music: Viva La Gloria :: Green Day

Two hours later, we're in business! I'm not sure if the fresh install did it or if loading the game's autosave from after the cutscene did it, but either way, it's running fine now.

Though, after going over the hardware requirements, I don't think my computer is supposed to be able to run it at all. Oops.

LET ME TELL YOU MY PROBLEMS WITH MASS EFFECT, INTERNETS.

So I'm sitting there, playing the Feros mission, and I activate the shuttle bay door to crush one of the claws of the geth ship and make it go away, so that I can contact the Normandy. Which is cool and all, since it looks kind of awesome.

At least, I think it does, because I haven't been able to make it through the whole cutscene without the game freezing up my whole computer. I'm talking cursor not moving, ctrl-alt-del not doing anything, caps lock and num lock not lighting up, having to hard reset the computer to get it working again kind of frozen.

I reset the computer and checked what it was doing to me. This isn't the first time computers have done weird things because they want to be updated, so I think, well, maybe I should update it. And there are only kind of five updates waiting for me, like an updated graphics driver and Windows 7 Service Pack 1, which sound kind of important, you know? So I install the updates, restart, and try again. And it freezes again.

Next I think, well, maybe my computer actually can't handle awesome ultra-high graphics settings. So I go in and change them back to medium, which is the second-lowest setting and what the game had when it installed, and then try again. And it freezes again - this time before the cutscene even starts!

Then I reboot in safe mode, thinking that might do something. It doesn't, because the game doesn't load properly. So I reboot normally, and verify the game's cache in Steam. It tells me everything's working totally fine and there are no problems! Which isn't true, but maybe it fixed whatever problems were there. Just to be safe, I run the game windowed, so that I can kill it the moment it freezes.

Which works out really well, until my computer freezes up about half a minute later even though the game isn't running.

Meanwhile, I'm googling like mad on the side, trying to find some kind of solution. People have their games freezing on Feros, but it's mostly the elevator, which is apparently a known problem that I never actually had. Then - success! I find a Bioware forums post with someone describing exactly the same problem I'm having. Someone tells them, "It sounds like a corrupt installation. Try reinstalling, or verifying the game cache if it's in Steam." And then, almost as an aside, they quote where the OP mentions his graphics card and says, "That might also be your problem. Intel graphics aren't supported."

Fuck. I have an Intel graphics card. But if it's still doing all this when the game isn't running, it can't be the graphics card that's the problem, right? (At least, I think it's not running after I close it, but the computer locks up before I can open the task manager to check.) Maybe it's something in the cutscene. So I copy the .ini file and edit it so that I can skip cutscenes, and try again.

Which seems like it's worked, I skip the cutscene and talk to Joker just fine, except that once I'm in control of Shepard everything freezes again.

So I copy my saves somewhere else, uninstall it, and am downloading it again through Steam. It takes fucking forever to download and it was getting kind of late, so I waited until this morning to start it. When it's done installing I'll copy my saves back in and try again. If that doesn't work, I don't know what I'll do. Probably scream.

Current Mood: aggravated

Today I played Mass Effect, had my computer crash on me, lost most of that morning's progress in Mass Effect, rebooted it, installed updates, rebooted it again, washed my car, spent twenty minutes in CVS for absolutely no reason, bought a laptop bag and a wireless mouse, ran the grocery store gauntlet, put gas in my car, got McDonald's, went to my dad's, watched a baseball game, watched Star Trek IV, listened to some music, came home, installed the mouse, and spent ten minutes looking for things I should have but cannot find.

And then I wrote that sentence. That is what my day has been like.

My new mouse tracks really quickly and I can't change it. I'm kind of afraid to play Mass Effect with it like that, but I figure I'll eventually get used to it. (Although, maybe if I actually downloaded and installed the software that goes with it I could probably, you know, change how fast it tracks. But why would I try that? It would only make sense. Disclaimer: It's actually installing as I write this.)

So I've started taking my laptop to school with me, right? But basically all I've used it for is watching Farscape and playing Mass Effect. The first time I played around with GIMP a little, but the USB cord on my tablet is really long and kind of annoying, so... (That's actually why I went out and bought a wireless mouse - the USB cord on the one I got from Jacob is really long, too.) Of course, having to tote everything around in a one-compartment messenger bag was pretty annoying, too... But now that I've got an actual laptop bag with about a million compartments things should be a bit easier. Hell, I might even be able to fit my precal book in there, too, and then I can actually do homework again! (Although the bag would probably weigh like eight pounds if I did, since my laptop isn't exactly light... plus I'm graduating in like three weeks, so I don't really care about precal. Not that I ever cared about precal, of course.)

Anyway, I'm off to regain some of that Mass Effect progress. It froze up right as I finished the Feros mission... D: I hope the game autosaved, otherwise I have to redo basically the entire mission.

edit: And then I found out it autosaved almost right where I was when it froze. I am so glad I never turned that feature off! :D

Current Mood: content
Current Music: Vamo alla Flamenco

I learned, to my great horror, that my school has installed new internet filtering software. On the plus side, this means that teachers can now log in and circumvent the filtering instead of having to ask the students for working proxies. On the minus side, the filtering is stricter. Livejournal is now blocked because it has "unauthorised Friendship content". I do not know what Friendship content is, but the people who created the filter software must be very lonely if they think friendship is bad. Maybe they should watch My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

(I am not going to say any more on the subject of My Little Pony, by the way. Maybe I've watched it, maybe I haven't. Only my internet history will know the truth.)

I have a super busy weekend ahead of me and I kind of hate it, a little. Today after I get home I've got to make tons of brownies, and sort through clothes, and go to the store and buy Hot Dog Accessories, and then go over to Mez's house and price things. (But not any of the clothes, because they just go in a huge pile, "Four for a dollar!") Then tomorrow I get to go back to Mez's house around eight in the morning, work the garage sale until two (fortunately Pinky and I are on Hot Dog Duty, which involves... cooking hot dogs. And not helping random people who can't read price tags, because I hate doing that). Why until two? Because then I have to get ready for prom! :D (That is not a serious smiley. I am not serious about it.) I'm actually going this year, and I have to be at Shiki's mum's house by, like, five. It probably won't take me three hours to get ready but at least I have them. There's an after party back at Shiki's mum's house but we all know it'll consist of us falling asleep in her living room.

Moving on. I've been meaning to take my laptop to school, because there's only one class where I have serious things to do and I'm terminally bored in the other three. Except that I don't have a case for it! It didn't come with one and I don't have a bag big enough that isn't just too big in general. I went to Staples yesterday but couldn't find a case big enough. ): (I don't believe Staples's advertising slogan. I have never walked in there and found what I was looking for, that's not easy at all.) Yesterday I joked that the only thing I own big enough to fit my laptop is the box it came in!

This morning I found out that was a lie. The box my tablet came in fits it perfectly, with room for peripherals. So I guess I've found myself a tablet case! I can inflict the ridiculousness of Atropos on all my friends once more.

Anyway, I need to update some files and make breakfast time, so I'll end this here. Om nom nom chicken leftovers.

Current Mood: hungry

And then I figured out how to import my internet history and all was well. Except for the seventeen gigs of music that I have to transfer four gigs at a time. That's not so awesome... but still, I'm not complaining.

Currently downloading Kitsu Saga; I didn't really get the chance to play it on Arata but I promised myself I'd try again once I got a new computer, so that's what I'm doing. I might give La Tale another try, as well... but I'm not sure, yet. I guess it depends on what I end up liking.

I should totally be transferring files or working on my soc paper or something... but I'm not, and I won't for a while yet. I mean, it's 8:40 in the morning. My cat woke me up at 6. D: So I think that, if I want to take some time to enjoy things, that that's okay. (It always starts like this, really. And then my homework never gets done.)

Also, there's something I really don't get. It used to be, that you'd download a file that would install a program. Now you download a file that downloads a file that installs a program. I mean... isn't that a little unnecessary? Can't you just download the installer, instead of the installer downloader? But then I guess that would make too much sense.

Got Skype! ...finally. I haven't added anybody, though... probably not going to, for a while. But whatever.

...I'm kind of tired. This is all the cat's fault.

edit: Yeah, Kitsu Saga wasn't really doing it for me. Back to La Tale, I suppose...