Tweaks R Us - Custom Drivers

Recently I built my first computer. Yay!

It was fun, scary, harrowing, and a great learning experience. I had some issues, that I got worked out. Things are still not 100% but it's running and I can play games and browse the web, so that's something!

So I went onto update all the drivers and BIOS that was available and compatible. Not the least bit painless, but I fuddled my way through most of it.

Unfortunately, right before I was able to download and install a modified driver for my EVGA e-Geforce 7600 GS 512MB GPU (Video/Graphics Card), the site it
was located on got hacked! Oi! Figures.

You see, typically one would install the driver provided by the device manufacturer. However, the EVGA site doesn't yet have the latest driver posted. Hmm? So I checked the video card's chipset manufacturer - nVidia - whom released a supposed compatible one in July. However, that one didn't seem compatible with my EVGA card at all - even though the GeForce 7600 GS was listed in the release notes. I don't know if this is a known issue, or if EVGA is apparently too lazy to modify it themselves {or perhaps it's a legality thing}. Anyway. So, being disheartened and frustrated, I searched for anything I could find. I searched high and low. Near and far. Until my eyes were tired, blood shot and squinty (can I sue for eye damage from my computer??) and my fingers [nearly] bled. Miraculously - and maticulously - my efforts proved true. Thus I was thrust into the world of mod-drivers. Oooh, fun. Scary fun.

All was well and good. I took my time assessing and analyzing to make certain that the driver was the best, most recent and compatible one for my system. Bingo, I found one. I bookmarked it to download once I had time.

Of course, things didn't work out that way. *sigh*

8 unknown things

Doh. I've been tagged (challenged)! My friend Nutt recently posted a blog (on MySpace.com) that tagged me to come up with 8 things that most people are unaware of about me. I hate to repeat things, but he and I have some similarities, so lets just get to it...

1. Nutt said he's been secretly desiring to live a hippy/surfer life. Well, I'm not that far gone yet. And, although it's probably not a secret to those closest to me, I've been desiring to be more involved with conservation. I just want to find a way to live with technology AND nature, and harmonize the two.

2. On that note, I've also been having desires to live a more simpler life. I ask myself, often, "What if we just sold almost everything we owned, bought an old car (1967 Chevy Impala to be precise) and just hit the road. Just my wife and me, a car and the open road. No sure how we'd make a living, but we're creative people, we'd come up with something.

3. Interestingly I share a similar dream with Nutt - as does my wife. We really just want to be involved, in some manner, in the film/tv entertainment industry - not specifically famous, but to be known and recognized for our work. I'm sure nobody would be very surprised, but we don't really go around ranting about it. I'm more interested in the 'behind the scenes' stuff, or doing voice-over work. That'd be swell. But I've always wondered (crippling nerves aside) if I'd be a good actor. Unlike Nutt, I probably wouldn't put up my soul for negotiation, however I'd take some real serious offers. I think the thing holding us back - other than the obvious - is that we don't want to give up our security. We're both (my wife and I) real comfort people.

4. I, too, apologize quietly everytime I have to kill a bug. Though, most of the time I try to be humane and capture them and put them outside. I even have a bug jar. Often in our house you can hear, "Shawn, there's a spider, get your bug jar!". Oh, and I can catch flies with my bare hands. I just snatch them right out of the air. True story.

5. I don't have any religious preference. I'm not opposed to religion or hold anything against religion, I just haven't found that it is for me. I just don't have any desire to be involved in one. I do think that for many people religion is a wonderful and positive instrument in their lives. Although I will occasionally quietly pray, I'm not sure to whom/what I'm talking too - just to the general universal consciousness I guess. Though in my youth I had been a little greedy in my requests, it's slowly evolved into something more. If I pray, I am usually saying "thank you" or appolgizing, or wish well for others, or asking for the opportunity, strength or guidance to do what I need to. It's really, to me, more of an inner realization thing than praying to 'something' else. I feel that whatever force is there has it's own path and will, so what could I ask for that's more important?

6. I fear that I might be prevented from achieving things I want to do. It increases my anxiety and insecurity. I want to be free from conflict and just seek some stability in an environment where I can relax and do what I want to. I don't want to have unreasonable or unnecessary demands put upon me. I love to tinker and play with creative things like art and electronics. I want my own studio and workshop.

7. I sometimes secretly desire to own my own business; a bar, a restaurant, or a retail shop. But I haven't the business mind, nor the urgently passionate ambition needed to pursue it. Perhaps someday.

8. I feel like I struggle with trying to be understood, or I haven't expressed my self or what-ever in an understandable way. I think it comes from having been so shy and withdrawn my whole life to this point. I just hadn't developed the communication skills needed, and have trouble putting things into context.
8a. It's not a secret, but I don't know if people realize just how bad it was. I had crippling shyness throughout my youth. I'm not sure when it happened, though I've always been a bit timid. But at one point it's like I lost my smile and just didn't speak to many people. I would stay inside or away from other kids or people, and just go about doing what I wanted and avoiding them. I did a lot of inner thinking and pondered many things and situations. I got lost in my own fantasy world to escape from interacting in real life. I would stare into nothingness and drift away mentally, though I was aware of everything, usually when I was angry, frustrated or just didn't want to deal. People - even my school teachers and relatives - use to ask my mom if I was mute, or doing drugs or ill. Yeah, it was that bad. I still regress sometimes, but not that bad. I have anxieties about confrontations and performing/speaking in public. Even if I want to do it, my body becomes a shaky-sweaty mess, then I stumble, mumble and can't think straight. Not sure why. I have mostly overcome it.


Ok, is that enough? I could go on I think, but that's good enough. Wow, that's a lot of text. lol. I'm not sure whom to tag... because all my friends on here have already been tagged. I don't use MySpace much at all.

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Living with Nature

Now I'm not usually one for the modern architecture movement. You know, the buildings that are constructed to, "stimulate the eye, accentuate the edges, allow one to feel the space, and blah blah blah...". It's all just a bit to plain, bland and minimalist for me. I like character, style and the merging of old and new. If you can make something, oh say a Victorian style house, and merge it near seamlessly with modern technology, environmentalism, efficiency and space utilization (both inside and out), that is a movement I can get behind. But I'm not one for buildings built just on an artistic expression of form. I understand the ideas and theories behind them, I just don't support the actual full throttle movement of trying to force progressivism with ideas that will eventually (about 30 years) look just tacky. Remember the "Everything is New" movement of the 1960's here in the good ol' US of A? Yeah, they knocked down a lot of great structures that had style, class and history, just to build big, ugly pastel-gray boxes. Yuck. I just don't care to repeat that past mistake. Miving forward means learning how to look back, and bring it all together.

However, this specific idea from the people of China is one I think works well. It brings together a harmony of nature and human living. It would be quite a marvel to see. Although, I'd still like to see some more character brought into the structure. Perhaps some Chinese symbols or statues or something? Hrm.

Anyhow, check it out; WATERWORLD

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