Finally got around to upgrading to Wordpress 2.7. Not too much of a noticeable difference except for the Admin section. Upgrading always feels risky, but everything turned out alright.

Besides that, took the opportunity to add a Blogroll to the sidebar. Done so many modifications to my sidebar I had to review some default pages to see how exactly to summon forth the blogroll for display. At least I know now.

This weekend took me to hell and back. On Thursday, my system encountered a “display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered” issue, followed shortly after with a screen lock and then finished off with a BSOD!

Needless to say, that came out of nowhere. No sign of issues beforehand or anything; practically a case of spontaneous combustion in a way. So after the BSOD, it tries to reboot, but starts showing signs of having trouble loading up Vista. I had to power off the system manually. This was when I went to work:

I yanked off the power cord, unplugged my monitors, opened up the computer, grabbed my compressed air can and blew out all the dust. I then pulled out the video card, sprayed off all the dust everywhere I could imagine and put everything back together. System rebooted fine and the problems went away for the night and I filed it away as an isolated incident. Little did I know that it was going to be much, much worse than I thought.

The next morning, fired up WoW, and I immediately get an error, the game locks up and my computer locks up. This was when I knew I had a problem. I didn’t have time to deal with as I was off to work, but when I got back, it was just constant “nvlddmkm” problems. Researching for solutions lead to dead ends as this problem has been around since 2007!!! What the fuck? 2007? Yes, 2007. At that point, I knew I was screwed.

Hours and hours into Friday night I go and no workable fix is available. So by now, it has moved on from an isolated incident to possibly a software issue. I wasn’t ready to call this a hardware failure, but I already made up my mind to be ready to go get a new video card just in case. Being 3:00AM in the morning, I called it quits until the next day.

Didn’t get much sleep at all. I was already up at 6:30 trying to find more solutions. The condition of the problems worsened by the hour. It wasn’t just affecting my gaming, it started affecting all aspects of my displays, even in idle mode, and all the way to when the system was just booting. I continued looking into nvlddmkm issues, but still no solutions. I kept looking, but nothing. So I decided it was time to try out a new video card. Along with this decision, I decided to quickly backup all my computer’s data. I had a feeling I was going to need a full computer format before all this is over.

I grabbed myself a new 9800GTX+ PCI-E. I quickly realized that I made a mistake. I didn’t look into the kind of powering I needed to run the new card. I plugged it in, but there was no way my current system could handle it. I was missing a 6-pin PCI-E power cord from my PSU. Not to mention, the card needed 450W to run, my PSU maxed out at 300W.

I repacked the video card and considered returning it. In the meantime, I went with my final option, which was to format my computer. If this was absolutely a software issue, a reformat will reset everything. Success on my side? Not at all. The issues affected the reinstall process, and crashed almost immediately when I started up WoW. I wasted the rest of my day reading about everyone else’s problems while noticing a steady, gradual decline of my video card. It was like watching someone’s health falter over time. It didn’t help at all that it was the onstart of Daylight Savings, effectively removing 1 hour of the precious weekend time.

Before I slept, I made the decision that I will try to get a new PSU with proper wiring and retry the new video card. Woke up early the next day, bought a new 500W PSU, got back, ripped out the old power supply, stuck in the new one and tested it out. Everything booted, so it was time for the new video card. Plugged everything in, boot fails. I remained calm and attempted a new Vista install. Success!

Everything was going smoothly at this point. Install was fine and no graphical glitches on the screen. Powered up WoW again, and it remained stable. I even went and got myself a pizza and let the game run. Everything fine when I got back. 2 minutes into me running around… and BAM.. screen fucks up and computer locks up. I was frustrated beyond comprehension. Did I diagnose the issue wrong? Was it my RAM that was causing the problems? My MOTHERBOARD?! Anything but the mobo, please.

Rebooted the machine, and decided to install the latest drivers. I didn’t get an nvlddmkm issue during the lock up, so I figured that it could possibly be a case of old drivers. Installed the new drivers and, to my surprise, that ultimately fixed the problem.

In conclusion, it was not a software issue. My RAM and Mobo were fine. It came down to hardware failure of my video card. And in true computer issue resolution, I threw money at the problem to make it go away. A new video card and a new power supply and now I am a happy camper once again. It even made me backup my files and format my computer. So everything is fresh and clean again. It only cost me some 2+ days of my life and close to $300, which I could’ve spent on a netbook =( . But I have my system back and that’s all that matters.

(And this my first post of the year. How distracted I have become due to WotLK.)

No matter how hard I try, the World of Warcraft somehow finds a way to pull me back in. Back in the beginning of October, I had this extremely plentiful amount of energy and free time, which I spent on working on a new site powered by Joomla, and it was going to be great and all. (For a sneak peek, and shameless plug, it’s located here: http://www.ninenines.net/portal)

And just when I thought things were well on its way to becominga full-fledged site of awesomeness, WoW came around and released the new Wrath of the Lich King content patch, which has sucked the life out of me for the past 2+ weeks. Why has it done so? I’ll tell you why. Here are some of the things:

1. New Talent specs
Did they nerf my rogue or beef him up? I need to know goddammit. Only way to know is to work out a new spec on a talent calculator and see what I’m doing against mobs in the real game. Conclusion? I feel buffer all of a sudden. With 10 more talent points to come, even more buff.

2. New life for my alts
With the new talents, my alts are buffer too, which gives me the motivation to blow the dust off their shoulder pieces and get back to leveling again. And from the expected server issues, I discovered how uberly OP my lowbie alt Paladin has become. Incredible.

3. Change in Game Dynamics
This has breathed life back into my guild. We were stuck on some hard-ass bosses, but with the new game dynamics mixed with new talents, steamrolling an instance had never felt better. 4 new bosses down in a single night? That’s unheard of.

4. Achievements for the ePeen
Of course, I couldn’t leave this little gem off the list. Whether I like them or not, or whether I have a choice or not, these little statistic tidbits are keeping everyone on the server just a little more busy than before. And for good reason. The reason being my next and final point:

5. Wrath of the Lich King expansion (in NOVEMBER!)
Ohmygod, you mean 2% of the WoW population will get a chance to get pwned in the face by Arthas himself? And 1% of them will pwn him back? I want in on some of that! But not just that. I want to try out the goddamn Death Knights!

With all the above points, Blizzard has successfully drawn me in along with millions of others to continue playing the game and for some, to return to the game. All in time for the expansion because Blizzard wants MILLIONS of people buying Wrath of the Lich King when it comes out, and they sure as hell want MILLIONS of dollars pouring into their already fat wallets. All the better too. Our economy is sucking right now. Maybe the surge in monetary movement between consumers and retailers will perhaps make everyone’s lives a little better by Thanksgiving and Xmas.

I’ve been spending the last 2 weeks putting together a new site using Joomla. It was a little overwhelming at first, but with the experience I’ve had using Wordpress, I didn’t have to worry too much about the system’s capabilities as I knew the program would have everything I was looking for so that allowed me to focus more on getting certain features and modules to work. Each day in this whole last week has been a small milestone in my goal of getting this new site ready. I predict another 2 weeks before it’s ready to take over the world. Hopefully.

Yes, yes, it’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been in the works for the last 2 weeks of transferring from one web host to another. The transfer was finally complete sometime a few days ago on Wednesday, and I haven’t had much of a chance to talk about it until now.

To avoid my site from getting compromised, I won’t talk about my previous or current hosts, but let’s just say I’m in a better place now, although it’s costing me a few more pennies per month. I might be able to offset that with some AdSense. Too bad I won’t get paid until I reach at least $100.00 in revenue. Who knows how much I’ll get from that. Maybe that’s just incentive for me to post more on the site to increase page rank, visitors, and such.

Anyway, the new host provides better page loading because their servers are a little closer to home, so to speak. And with this new host, I present to you a new page design. I’ve been trying to find a new page design, and this one has worked out very nicely for me.

I finally got around to figuring out how to stream HD flash video without having loading issues and the like. So here’s official ‘working’ version number 1.

All it took was to encode in H.264 to mp4 format, run a little program that I found to move meta/header data to the front of the file to allow for streaming right away, and change the file extension to FLV. Piece of cake, though it took months before I got to this point.

Watchmen is going to be great.

Took a good two years of saving to get this, and it’s exactly what I wanted. Black on black with nav. And it’s no 250 weakling.

Got it last week, but too lazy to get a photo in or a post in, but I had to get a picture of it now, before the wax and shine disappears and its age beginning to show.

Upgrading Wordpress from 2.5 to 2.5.1

So after seeing a daily flux of spam comments, I finally decided to update to 2.5.1 for Wordpress. I figured that must have been the security hole WP was referring to for 2.5 so I had to do it. At least everything is up to date and I have myself a good backup of my site so I can delete my older backups.

Webhost issues

I also found the time to get angry at my webhost for slow connection performance. They put the blame on me in retaliation. When I told them this wasn’t my first barbeque, they backed off and told me they would work with their system admin to resolve my issue. I’m thinking, there’s an issue now? Just as my boss told me, if you know more than what they are telling you, they have to change their explanation and actually have to match your response with a more advanced, more inner-workings type of answer. Let’s see how much is improved. Otherwise, it’s going to be a case of I’m packing up and moving out.

Blogging in general

My friends tell me I don’t blog enough. I know I don’t. I simply don’t have enough time. I really should get on a blogging regiment. At least one blog entry per month.

Website updates

I need a new theme. This one’s getting a little old, so maybe if there’s time on the next 3 day weekend, I might muster the manic properties of bi-polarism to get to updating this.

It would appear that the next season of Haruhi will most likely be The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi. I’m definitely excited. And here’s why I believe it’s going to be based on this storyline (from Anime News Network):

SPOILER ALERT!! –
After the Anime News Network message, I’m going to go a little in depth to the storyline.

The official Japanese website for The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya television anime series has announced further details about the franchise’s next anime project. In the spirit of the first anime series and the Haruhi Suzumiya science fiction comedy light novels that spawned the franchise, the announcement was made in a roundabout, cryptic manner.

On Tuesday, the site “disappeared” and began displaying a false error message that read, “The page cannot be found.” A second message then appears over the first message; it states that a computer program is starting up and prompts the user for a password. If the user enters “K,” “N,” “S,” “A,” and “K” (the initials of the family names of the members of SOS brigade, the main characters in the series) into the password fields and selects the radio button to the right, a fake xterm terminal session opens. A series of messages from “YUKI.N” confirms that the key to the “emergency escape program” has been found and asks for a final confirmation before starting the program. If the user hits the enter key, a new page opens that shows the character Yuki and lists the production credits of the new series.

The page reveals that the previously announced second anime season of Haruhi Suzumiya has been “cancelled” and replaced with a new animation project. Yasuhiro Takemoto (Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid, Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, Lucky Star) will direct the new project, and Kyoto Animation will still be animating as it did for the first anime project. As in the previous anime project, the fictional “leader” of the new anime project is the character Haruhi Suzumiya herself. The “disappearance” of the website on December 18 at 4:00 a.m. (Japan Standard Time) is a reference to the pivotal date in The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, the fourth volume in the light novel series and an apparent indication of which novel plot the new anime project will adapt. Bandai Entertainment finished its English-language release of the first anime project in November.

Alright, on to a preview the Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi.

So what happens is one day, Kyon wakes up and the world literally has changed over night. Haruhi is missing, no one knows who Haruhi is (except for Tanaguchi), Asahina doesn’t know him, Itsuki is missing, and Asakura is back! Not to mention, Yuki, the only person who can save the day, has become a fragile loner of a bookworm. Talk about the odds stacked against Kyon.

So where’s Haruhi. Well, someone changed history to have Haruhi end up at a different school. Here she is in another school uniform. Looks quite spiffy, if you ask me. By the way, Itsuki is at this school too.

With Haruhi at another school and not having met Kyon, the SOS Brigade would never have been created. Sounds like a villain plotting the destruction of the SOS Brigade by making sure it never even had a chance to be made.

And as for the big spoiler: Let’s take a look at the image released by Kyoto Animation. This is an image of Yuki with her arm stretched out aiming at the school. Since I read the novels, I know exactly what’s going on here. And it points out what Haruhi Season 2 is going to be, which is The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi. Not only is it this, but it should be this one by the fact that it is the only one next to the original novel that actually has a decent anime-acceptable plot. The other stories available are rather short or not interesting enough. This one is, and many would agree. Here’s another cover art to finish it off:

I never thought I would go back to the World of Warcraft, but I think I’m in a good place again in my life for me to continue playing. Plus I got a really nice computer a few weeks ago :) .

Anyway, I’ve been getting so much comment spam that it’s a sign that my website is actually generating hits! Well, that’s how I see it. Spammers only target well positioned websites, so I guess I should be happy about that. Not too happy about deleting spam, but I can live with that. And with that said, if I’m generating enough traffic, maybe using some text ads on the page might make just enough cash to pay for this site each month. If that was possible, I can keep this place up indefinitely. However, if that were the case, I would stop updating. Right now, since I’ve already paid, I have the, oh, obligation, to update once in a while. I’m just so lazy.

But alright, I will make a decent post before this month ends. Hopefully Warcrack doesn’t burn up all my time.