Annoyances, minor

[vakkotaur]

1. I sent in my registration form for Penguicon a bit over a month ago. I've been watching for the check to clear and so far it hasn't. Naturally there has been no registration confirmation sent. This may be in the process of being taken care of, as evidently there have been delays in processing the registration and checks. Hopefully by the end of this week I'll know if the check even arrived.

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2. While registration for RCFM is well and truly taken care of, the hotel reservation is not. The line on the web site "The details of how to make reservations are still being worked out. Check back later for this information." has been up for some considerable time and I recall being told that it had been worked out but it's not yet on the web site. RCFM is a few months off, but I still would prefer to make the room reservation as soon as I can. On a related note, I'd like it if Jay would (or could) decide whether or not he'll attend RCFM as well. If he does, we share the room and that's that. If not, then I can see about sharing the room with someone else. I do not want to end up scrambling to find someone for that at the last minute. Nor do I want to make any promises I can't be sure I can keep. ADDENDUM: Jay has decided to go to CostumeCon since it's only as far away as Des Moines this year.

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3. Right before leaving the house this noon I noticed that the microwave's clock was showing 88:88. That's not the real annoyance. It indicates a minor power dropout. The annoyance is that the dropout was enough to trip my UPS (at home) and the monitor I have is just power-hungry enough that it's too much for the UPS. This monitor is the same size as my previous monitor which wasn't a problem until it failed outright. The result that the UPS shuts down to protect itself and so the UPS is pretty much useless, even at just taking care of minor power glitches. I need to see about an LCD monitor, but I really don't want to deal with the expense, hassle of selection, and then figuring out what to do with a good, (not perfectly good, it had some insignificant burn-in when I bought it) if more power hungry than I like, monitor.

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All these are fairly minor as things go, but they've still been bugging me.

Comments

[chakawolf.livejournal.com]

#2 has been bugging me as well. Time for a post!

#2 has been bugging me as well

[jugularjaguar.livejournal.com]

We have top men working on it, Top men.

Re: #2 has been bugging me as well

[chakawolf.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, there's a joke in there somewhere . . . .

Re: #2 has been bugging me as well

[jugularjaguar.livejournal.com]

I was going to make reference to #2 but I thought I would save that for FWA.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

The Penguincon people had a party at Capricon, featuring coffee made with Water Joe. I'm surprised everyone wasn't just a little blurry...

[nefaria.livejournal.com]

A more powerful UPS may be cheaper than a new LCD monitor, it's something to consider. But the LCD monitors are very nice, the same picture quality as a back-breaking CRT monitor, except for a tiny bit more blur when things are in motion, due to the inherent LCD lag.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I thought about that, but the LCD monitor would likely have more benefit than just not causing an unplanned shutdown. The much lower power consumption would be some benefit beyond the UPS issue. The resolution would probably be higher and it would likely last longer. Had I a bit more money and not felt as pressed for time I might have bought an LCD monitor then. It's not a hugely pressing matter just now, so now is probably the time to go look at few things and see how I like them. If nothing else, I'll have a couple places to start when the time comes. Or maybe I'll find something I like at a price I won't mind too much.

[nefaria.livejournal.com]

LCD monitors are pretty cheap now, Dell was even offering a decent 17" model for free with new computers. Hope you find one at a good price.

[yakko.livejournal.com]

Something like this 17" LCD would be a good start.

I remember my touchy UPS woes. There was a time when I would come home to find my machine had rebooted spontaneously. Parts were swapped, an upgrade was done in advance, and I thought all was well... until one day. I happened to be sitting at the computer when the power browned out enough to kick the UPSs over. Except the UPS that my computer was on turned off instead! Turns out the battery went bad. One new UPS later, that was fixed.

More recently, I'd put just enough load on one UPS to where it wouldn't overload unless it tried to go to battery... and even then it was inconsistent about it. So I'd come home to find the UPS in overload at random. Redistributing the load fixed that.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Or pick up a second cheap UPS for the monitor alone. Many of the cheap ones are inadequate at notifying a computer to shut itself down. But a monitor doesn't need that kind of process anyway.