Spy Journal 3.0 Filtering the web for you

So I need inspiration. I name all the Ps and servers in this place.

We have servers

• MAGE - SBS2003
• APPRENTICE - Server2003
• WAITER - Server2008
• WONDERLAND – Windows Home Server
• PORTCULLIS – Linux Server

Desktops

• CHEETAH (my current machine)
• FLAMENCO
• DRAGON (died and gone to parts bin – to be replaced with MOONBEAM)
• SNAKE
• JADESTAR
• DOLPHN
• BARBIE

Media Center PC

• LIBRARY

Laptops

• SERENITY
• MUSHROOM

The only unimaginative names are the 4 virtual machines we use for remote access and development.

So I need a new name for the PC that is to replace CHEETAH.

My thinking so far includes:

• ZELENKA – baroque musician and composer, and also technician in Stargate Atlantis
• ASSASSIN
• TECHMEISTER
• CYBERNETIC

Please vote in the poll and help me choose!

I am upgrading my PC.

The old one is for sale.

Serious offers from $3000 up will be entertained. Email me tim at spyjournal dot biz or contact me using contact form.

Here are the specs. Note this machine has been running almost without stopping for 22 months.

• CPU - Intel S775 Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Quad-Core CPU
• Mother board - BFG 680iSLI
• 4Gb of Corsair DDR2 RAM
• Antec 900 - has 3 120mm fans - 2 at front in front of drive bays and 1 at rear, as well as a massive 200mm fan in the top sucking out. the 120mm fans are all illuminated with case power light.
• Video card - BFG NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX OC2 768MB PCIe
• Two  Western Digital 10,000 RPM 74Gb Raptor HDD
• Two Western Digital 500Gb HDD
• One Seagate 500GB HDD
• LG DVD Drive
• All in one Card Reader
• Additional Cooling - CPU Zalman CNPS9700 LED CPU Heatsink
• Power supply - Tagan 1100 watt
• Monitors - 2x 22" Viewsonic VX2235WM widescreens
• Logitech G15 Keyboard
• Logitech G7 Mouse

Note the CPU in this is worth $1829 new on its own.

Sometimes hardware just stops working. Sometimes Windows handles this well, other times it doesn’t. Jude’s PC is rather old, and she has been running Vista on a machine that was not built for it. In the weekend she experienced a blue screen of death that returned every time she logged in within about 5 minutes.

  After some initial troubleshooting turned nothing up I decided to test the Windows home server restore process. This worked wonderfully well, but the BSOD kept happening. I dug deeper, and then decided to rebuild the machine. First I tried Vista ultimate 64bit. I had this running smoothly, and was installing drivers and hardware apps when BANG – BSOD. The screen shot straight into a restart so no chance to snap a photo of it for research.

I tried a fresh install of Vista Ultimate 32 bit in case it didn’t like the UPS drivers I had just installed. No good either. After more troubleshooting I think the Motherboard has a faulty USB connector and software drivers in the BIOS. There is a patch, but in this case, the MB is just going to get junked.

So she is setup on a laptop for now or she can use the development machine when staff are not here.

Maybe I need to get her one of these t-shirts!

Sort of like liquorice all-sorts – only not.

NowPublic can scan keywords, heres the Drupal scan page. This article should get linked on there.

I got nominated as a Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 expert. This might prompt me to write some articles here in the future about the difficulties in establishing Enterprise 2.0 ideas in small and large business. Watch this space! Thanks John for that!