5 posts tagged “hardware”
My day week is being sacrificed to the vengeful computer gods who have smacked me with bad computer mojo.
- new mobile battle station - left out in the snow for 6 days by UPS
despite the fact that I called them ahead of time and told them I would
be out of town; their records claim I signed for it. Very, very pissed
off about this.
- desktop media computer - broken power supply (I think)
- laptop for everyday use - dying battery that gives me 15 minutes before it shuts down
- web access - paying for 5M/s, getting 800kb/s with dropped packets.
- old laptop - dead battery, dead sound card
- Kindle - keeps freezing up when I try to access the news over the net.
Lesson #3592 - go back to pen and paper. Your life will be far simpler.
A long, long time ago, I bought a Wacom Tablet and never used it. Now that I need to rotoscope (hand paint) out 150 frames for my Tooth Fairy FX, as well as a few frames with boom pole/ gear in it, my thoughts turned to my tablet.
My tablet is the original Intuos which they're now calling Intuos 1. I bet you can pick it up dirt cheap now. If you have one or if you want to go the super cheap route and don't mind SW hassles, here's how I finally managed to get it working on Vista:
Aaron B. Hockley's blog includes these instructions on how to get your old tablet working with Vista:
1. Download Wacom’s latest driver from their web site.
2. Create the following registry key if it doesn’t exist:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Tablet]
"PnPTablets"=",COM1"
3. Plug in the tablet. If Windows prompts for a driver, hit cancel.
4. Install the Wacom driver. The tablet should work after the driver is installed.
5. Reboot. If Windows prompts to install a driver for the hardware, choose the option not to present the message again.
The tablet should work from that point forward.
When I tried it, it didn't work. I called tech support and the very nice Sr. guy talked me through it.
A. Make sure the serial to USB connector has a Vista driver (my computer doesn't have a serial connector which the old tablet uses so I had to buy a serial to USB converter). Make sure to download their latest driver from your connector manufacturer.
B. Plug in your tablet and see which port it's plugged into (you will need to plug it into this port every time from now on so pick one you can remember). You can see which port it's in by going into Control Panel/ Device manager/ ports (COM& LPT). You should see your USB-to-serial comm port (--YOUR PORT NUMBER--) Remember that number.
C. My computer guru set up the registry key for me and I forget how that was done but you can reach the registry via pressing the Windows key on your keyboard along with R. That'll pull up the Run menu. Type "regedt32" press OK. Then create the registry key of #2 above if it isn't there (this part I can't help you with). The ",COM1" is computer dependent -- this is the port you are plugging your Wacom into. Instead of typing in ",COM1" in #2 above, type in your com number you found in B. Mine was ",COM4"
D. Reboot
WHEW! Good luck!
Hey gang, for those of you looking to buy a media computer, check this out: HP Pavilion
It’s priced at $500. Has 2.6GHz, AMD Athlon (duo core), 3GB memory (awesome!), LightScribe DVD burner (this is cool in that you can burn a picture/text onto your DVD instead of writing on it), 400GB hard drive (nice!). It’s factory recertified which means someone returned it and they fixed it at the factory. Totally worth it in my opinion since regular price is $1,200. You might want to upgrade the video card but I haven’t researched the video card in this computer so I don’t know. This is a really sweet deal.
This will keep you from having to upgrade the components like I did. (BTW, I’ve been lazy about putting up the post where I detail where you put in upgraded components into your computer because it’s a lot of work for a post and I can’t tell how many of you want to see it. Shoot me a message or leave a comment if you want it and I’ll do it)
Speaking of upgrading components, here’s a 1G desktop memory upgrade for $24. I paid $90 for mine so this is a screaming deal.
There's a 1T RAID on sale today for $230 for those of you who're looking for more storage. You have to mail in a coupon for $20 which is a pain but it's a good price. I'm going to pass since I just bought my 500G but if I hadn't bought the 750G mentioned yesterday, I'd buy this one. I'll eventually buy one but not unless there's an insane deal or I fill up my new HD. RAID is cool since it automatically backs up your data. This one has two 500G HDs. You only have 500G (a little less actually but that seems to be the convention) of storage but it automatically backs up into the other 500G HD. Right now, I have 500G but I'd have to manually back it up. I asked my computer guru if hard drives really fail and he said absolutely. RAID is designed so that if one HD fails, the other will save your butt. For your precious video, make sure to back up, RAID or no, especially if you don't have a tape backup.
Enough of that contract BS. Let's talk hardware! Check this out: 750G external hard drive for $180 with free shipping. These deals usually only last a couple of days so you need to jump on it if you want one. I just bought another 500G HD for $100 a couple of days ago, otherwise I'd buy this one. I still haven't given up on the 1T HD and at the rate I'm going, I'll still need a 1T soon so I'll keep my eyes open for a good deal.
Congrats goes out to Vert who's help was invaluable with TOOTH FAIRY. He just got an awesome camera. Ooh. Shiny.
