I do like these holidays. Actually I’ve not really had a proper one in over 6 years. In the past I’ve either been working, or had work hanging over me, or worse still, had to revise (like watching paint dry). Now, although I know I will be working when I get back, I’ve got no revision I’m supposed to be doing, no project work I’m supposed to be doing. I’m supposed to be enjoying myself, doing what I want. Nice.
Still having fun with the CD Writer widget in my parents PC. I’m still resisting the temptation to bin Nero and stick something else on. However I resist some more. It still wants to "detect" CD drives, rather than just do the Windows things and allow any drive you like. They claim the purpose of this is to allow ‘on-the-fly’ CD copying from all drives. I wouldn’t trust my most hated enemy to a round of on-the-fly. In the past every CD I’ve needed to copy had some flaw in it that meant the CD drive had to spin a little before it read the data. No problem for those funky new Plextor non-under burn CD Writers, but a big big (coaster) problem for normal CD Writers. After much deliberating, following links (who’s problem is it? Creative made both the DVD drive and the CD Writer, and shipped the software… so I start with them, in case it’s a known problem), through to the Nero people. Who offer a few downloads. Eventually the smaller download, which is supposed to fix the problem is out of date, and so a full update of the software is needed. This works.
I’ve had some words of encouragement from Mr Dominik, with regard to DVDs:
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 21:21:35 -0600
From: John Dominik
To: Phil Hough
Subject: Late but hopefully helpful
I had the same problem you did with the DVDs. I’ve got an ATI Rage 128 GL AGP video card (‘twas the best I could lay hands on when I bought this machine, and had twice the memory of my first PC). I had a hell of a problem with the DVD - video sucked, lots of artifacts, problems with images chopped up, off, and etc., and it turned out I was running either in too high, or too low, a video resolution. I went into the settings, fiddled, and things worked… I think it also needed color settings messed with. Don’t give up on DVDs - I got hooked watching “Ghostbusters.” Yes, an old film, but the second and third and fourth soundtracks were cool - ended up listening to Harold Ramis and others tell stories about the production… Including how, late in the movie, they’d blocked off traffic to a building to shoot outdoor scenes. Isaac Asimov was in the crowd, and Ackroyd, Ramis, and Murray recognized him and stepped over to chat. He knew of them, they chatted for a bit, then Asimov asked “what’s going on here? Why can’t I get into my building?” They explained it was for their movie - he uttered a couple of choice ones and toddled off. Pretty funny. Or another favorite - “Highlander” (The first one, please). Over here they chopped a key five-minute segment out of the middle of the film - overseas versions never lost it. Finally got it on the DVD (had a couple of bootleg copies I could see it on - but just barely). DVDs are pretty spiffy; it just takes a lot of frustration. Sounds like computers in general, eh? Enjoy the holidays… And the family.
I found that the software installed and the software shipped differ, and so installed the latest software (shipped) and will go hire another DVD and do much more tinkering next week. Thanks for the reply, it at least gives me some hope!
And with that out of the way I spend most of the rest of the day moving odds and ends from the old PC to the new.

Posted by Phil on December 16, 2000 12:00 PM | Categories: Misc