So I spent two and a half hours with the Microsoft support line and still no resolution to the problem. I've concluded that I will have to re-install WinXP and then re-install Vista. But first, I'm going to install a new 10,000 RPM main drive and re-install the O/S on that drive. Using a RAID 0 drive as the boot drive caused way too many problems with the WinXP install.

On a side note, I picked up 2001: A Space Odyssey on HD DVD. Early informal reviews at AVSForums has been positive. The old DVD I had was horrible. I'm still trying to buy the Valve Orange Box at Fry's for the discount price (I have a rain check), but it's constantly out of stock. I wonder if Valve is shorting retail in order to drive more people to the Steam online delivery system, bypassing the retail channel and manufacturing costs. Naw, Valve wouldn't be that manipulative.

Some quick blogging while I'm working with Microsoft tech services to re-enable my Vista. Fun.
We're at 1 hour 10 minutes and counting....

A little background: I had some instability with the rebuilt game PC system and I thought it would be better to upgrade to Vista with a new set of drivers. The Motherboard is an ASUS P5N-E SLI with 2GB of DRAM. It turns out the motherboard has had some DRAM stability issues that works best with a manual override. The system instability caused Vista to become corrupted, but the retail upgrade edition of Vista wouldn't let me reinstall it easily.

Now are 1 hour and 40 minutes and still no working Vista. The India-based tech has already complimented me twice on my patience.

The reason I wanted Vista on my game PC was for the DX10 content, with World in Conflict sitting on my shelf and Crysis coming. I may have to resort to reinstalling WinXP and trying to install Vista again. Cripes.

I just finished my participation on TWiT 116! I'm almost an occasional semi-regular guest as this is my third TWiT (not counting the MacWorld episode where I was in the audience and also asked a question).

Not to sound too fawning, but I really enjoy the TWiT pod/netcasts. I usually listen to them on the way to work in the car.

If you'd like to make a comment about my guest appearance, please be kind. I'm more a print guy, than a radio guy, although I was a big fan of Bob and Ray. In college, on occasion, I would help a friend of mine on his college radio show with a sort of Bob and Ray-style improvisation. Bob and Ray humor is very dry, and is kind of a cross between Bob Newhart and Monty Python.

Unless Leo edits it out, at one point you'll hear a door slam and a rattling sound - that's the door to the garage next to my office closing (it's spring loaded to force it to close), which cause the metal shelve holding my train collection to vibrate (see pic).

One of the new products I'm going to review on this site is the Belkin N1 Vision Wireless Router. It's looks and functionality were too good to pass up.

I'm back!
After a fling with Vox, I'm back to Blogger and my EntroPC blog for technology. I'll keep Vox around for personal blogging about stuff like wine, beer, cars, etc. EntroPC will continue my technology-related thoughts and experiences.

For those who are wondering about the name, EntroPC is a pun on entropy and PCs. While I originally thought about the PC industry losing it's energy, I actually think that the industry has never been so dynamic. It keeps getting better and adapts to new markets. While I would argue that Intel's plans to move x86 processors into smartphones is not the most logical idea I ever heard, the development of small PC platforms (MIDs, UMPCs, OLPC) does show that the PC is very adaptable.

I also believe that the PC is the best gaming platform; better than consoles. The reason is that a PC can be adapted to to be an excellent game console, but a game console will never be a good PC. I'd love to see someone develop a game PC that did just that. I think Dell or HP could do it. It just seems that no one has the will to do it. The company I work for, NVIDIA, could do it, but it lacks the consumer channels, very deep packets, and will to compete with its own customers (Microsoft and Sony).