|
Stardate May 2, 2006
It's been a while since my computer pictures actually
worked. It's been even longer since I published anything recent.
The last time this page was updated, I was using a GeForce3 Ti500.
Now I have an X800XT Platinum Edition...so there's been quite a gap.
Picturing my computer isn't exactly the easiest thing in the world to
do, because of its location. It's also not easily portable due to
my external nine-bay vertical hard drive rack. In any case, here
is my system as of May 2, 2006.
This first image is my complete setup, as full viewing
as I can make it. I've got a crappy little desk setup in the
corner of a crappy little room with a crappy tacky-ass tack board tacked
full of tacked-on tackable stuff. My computer case is the same
classic one I've had since my first AMD processor--the 1.2GHz
Thunderbird I used to have. The keyboard is a regular Microsoft
Internet Keyboard--from back when they were new (not the new ones with
lots of buttons, I'm talking about the original ones). The
monitor is new though. It's a ViewSonic VP2030b, which is a 20.1"
4:3 aspect 8ms LCD. It's been pretty cool so far and as you can
see, it shows my computer as I am authoring this page's visual layout
aspect.
Click the image to bring up a full resolution version.
My tower is an interesting item. It's from an era that few people
seem to remember...the first assumption is always that it is a piece of
crap. I may still have an Athlon XP sticker on it, but that's just
because I was too lazy to replace it with the Athlon 64 one...or I never
got one...or something. Anyway, it isn't important. What is
important is that inside, it's got some really nice stuff going on.
And by inside, I mean outside.
Click the image to bring up a full resolution version.
Yeah, that's a big-ass array of hard drives, wouldn't you say?
Total storage in this machine is somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.3TB,
currently. I suspect that this will be increasing over the next
few years. This next shot is a (now) rare glimpse into the innards
of my computer. Ever since my computer mutated and grew that big
vertical aluminum hard drive rack, seeing the "normal" stuff inside of
my computer has become seldom. At the top of this picture
(inside), you can see the end of my X800XT Platinum Edition with its
massively overkill cooling. Below that is the SATA controller that
provides the RAID-1 "Mirror" volume for my Windows XP boot volume.
Below that card is my latest internal hardware addition (or swap-out in
my case). The card is one of those crappy Sound Blaster Audigy SE
sound cards that you can pick up from Wal-Mart. My onboard was
malfunctioning and driving me crazy...so I kinda had to. Sorry.
Below that card is my trusty 3ware Escalade 7500-8 true hardware
RAID controller. Now, when I say true, I mean that it
doesn't rely on the OS to maintain its arrays, has onboard memory, and a
dedicated XOR processor allowing RAID-3 and RAID-5 support that won't
leech off of the system's resources.
Click the image to bring up a full resolution version.
Some of the true unsung heroes of any computer system are the input
peripherals. In this picture's case (first of three), that means
my ancient Microsoft Internet Keyboard, manufactured by Keytronics in
Mexico I do believe. Don't trust me on that one, however. It
is this keyboard that refuses to die, even with a broken prop support
and millions upon millions of keystrokes. This is the keyboard
that saw the creation of Particle's Custom RPG from the beginning.
You should at this point be kneeling. =P
Click the image to bring up a full resolution version.
More often appreciated, but often still neglected is the mouse. I
recently replaced my Logitech Dual Optical (a mouse that shortly after
making they quickly stopped acknowledging) with this Logitech G5 "true
laser" mouse. A lot of people mistakenly assume that optical mice
are all lasers because they are red. If that were true, they'd be
the most poorly focused lasers in all of modern history. They use
simple red LEDs and detect the reflected light to determine movement.
This mouse truly does user a laser, though, and you can barely even see
it. A nice bonus is the ability to adjust a pop-out weight
cartridge where there battery pack would be on the G7--the G5's wireless
brother. After a few months, I think I liked my Dual Optical mouse
better. All that I said was that the mouse disappeared from
Logitech's collective intelligence shortly after it was made. I
never said it wasn't a totally rock-awesome mouse.
Click the image to bring up a full resolution version.
I picked up this Logitech Force 3D Pro joystick around Christmas time of
2005. I intended to use it a lot for Battlefield 2, a game that
not only I had been playing a lot, but even upgraded my video card for.
Ever since the holiday season, I haven't played any Battlefield 2 to
speak of, so this device has seen little action. All I remember
from trying it out is that it's harder to fly a chopper with this thing
than a keyboard and mouse for me without any practice on the stick.
Click the image to bring up a full resolution version.
This is my laptop's replacement. With a luminous 4" transflective
LCD, 128MB of RAM, and a 624MHz Intel XScale CPU, this PocketPC is truly
a blast to use. It's faster than my 1.13GHz P3 laptop and more
portable to boot. You might argue that I can't play many games on
this thing, but to be honest--I can't do that on my laptop, either.
My laptop is from a time back before there was really any 3D
acceleration to speak of in portable computers. Oddly enough, this
thing will play Quake 1 faster than my laptop will.
Click the image to bring up a full resolution version.
This picture isn't really related to the rest of the images, but I
thought it would be worth showing. Have you ever wondered what
really would happen to your laptop if you shot it with a 9mm?
Neither did I, but I found out anyway. The correct answer, of
course, is that the laptop's hard drive (if hit) might just stop the
round. Don't assume this as a scientific fact, though. If
you're getting shot at, don't hold up your laptop and smile with a grin
of impervious glee. Run...fucking run.
Click the image to bring up a full resolution version.
Warning, this page is very picture heavy. (Heh, now he
tells me!) I hope you enjoyed this photo montage of doom.
(term borrowed) I've shown you mine. Now it's your turn.
You should totally email me now and sign with lots of
X's and O's. Sorry that I can't make this address a link and for
the goofy image, but I have to deter spam bots some how.
|
